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OUR DIGESTION; 



OR, 



MY JOLLY FRIEND'S SECRET. 



BY 

DIO LEWIS, A.M., M.D., 

PRESIDENT OF THE "NORMAL INSTITUTE FOR PHYSICAL EDUCATION," AUTHOR OF 

"new onaumofl rot men, woim and children," "weak lungs, 

AND HOW TO MAKE THEM STRONG," " OUR GIRLS," ETC. ETC. 



"Without health wo can enjoy no fortune, honors or riches, and all other 
advantages ftl — IIii'Pocrates. 



PHILADELPHIA AND BOSTON: GEO. MACLEAN. 

CINCINNATI AND CHICAGO: E. HANNAFORD & CO. 

NEW YORK: MACLEAN, GIBSON & CO. 

1872. 






\* 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the v.-ar 1872; by 

DIO LEWIS, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



"VYestcott & Thomson*, Hzxry B. Ashmead, 

Ftsreotypers and Electroti/pcrs, Phila. Printer, Philcu 



DEDICATION. 



Tins work upon digestion is dedicated to 

those of my countrymen who are " all gone 

in the pit of the stomach/ 1 with the kindest 

wishes of 

The Author. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Introduction 11 

Our Digestion — Good Teeth very Beautiful — Why do our 
Teeth Decay?— Curious Fact about Teeth . . . .17 

Mastication — About the Physiology of Mastication — A 
Lady I Knew — Conversation with a Woman — Practical 
Conclusion about Mastication — Curious Facts about Masti- 
cation in Animals 27 

Sense of Taste 35 

What Causes the Feeling of Hunger? . . , 36 
The Animal and Vegetable Compared . . .40 

Only One Stomach 43 

Food — Wheat — Superfine Flour — Receipt for Good Bread — 
Rye — Indian Corn — Barley — Oats — Rice — Beans and Peas 
— Potatoes — Turnips, Carrots, Squashes, Parsnips, etc. — 
Animal Food — Phosphorus a Source of Life— Phosphorus 
in the Human Brain — Foods Rich in Phosphorus . . 45 

The Food of the Ancients 58 

The Best Food — How I helped Mr. Richards — Advice to 
Mr. Richards — Silly Pride of Poor People — An Experi- 
ment in Cheap Living — Story of Another Kind . . 62 
Different Theories of Digestion — True Theory of Di- 
gestion — Our Ignorance of the Vital Force — Another Fa- 
mous Doctor 81 

Sunshine and Digestion— Sleep and Digestion . . 89 

l* 5 



6 CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Corsets and Digestion 95 

Necessity of Acids in Digestion 99 

Helps to Digestion — Table Furniture — Flowers at Table 
— Music at the Table — The Table and the Chairs — Conver- 
sation at the Table — A Lawyers Experience — Striking 
Experience of a Merchant — Another View of the Same 
Picture — John Smith's Method — A Word in Conclusion . 101 

Kegularity in Eating — Queer Feeding of Babies— How 
Often shall Babies be Fed ?— Bottle-fed Babies . . .117 

The Story of Young Samuel 126 

Large Eaters — The Squire's Indigestion — Abernethy's 
Keceipt for Indigestion — Fault-finding of the Stomach . 131 

Excess in Eating— How Much shall I Eat ?— Two Meals a 
Day — Illustration of One Law of Digestion — Let us Con- 
sider . .139 

Perhaps a Good Idea 1-31 

Water — A Word about Wells— Lead and other Pipes . .134 

Cold Drinks During Meals— What shall We Drink?— 
Intoxicating Drinks — When to Drink Water . . .161 

Mineral Waters — Boston Mineral Spring — More about a 
Curious Prejudice — The Colonel's Gout — Tom Jones' 
Spring — Have Mineral Waters no Value ? . . . .167 

Tomatoes 183 

Salt 188 

Pastry 191 

How Fat People may Get Themselves into Ship- 
shape 192 

How Thin People may Become Plump . . . .197 

Noises in the Bowels 201 

Colds 204 



CONTENTS. 7 

PAGE 

Treatment of Waterbrash or Heartburn . . . 207 

Curious Treatment of Dyspepsia 209 

Starvation as a Cure for Dyspepsia .... 224 
Biliousness — Cornaro's Testimony — Effects of Eating Too 
Much — Other Interesting Historical Facts — Our Boarding- 
Houses 227 

Exercise Before Breakfast 251 

Our Keservoir 255 

Sympathy Between the Stomach and Other Parts 
of the System — A Sick Brain a Cause of Dyspepsia . 262 

Prevention of Disease — Other Ancient Authorities . . 270 

Treatment of Diseases — Bronchitis — Consumption — Dys- 
pepsia — Neuralgia — Disease is not a Thing — Popular Treat- 
ment of Disease 279 

Weight in the Stomach — "Weakness in the Stomach a 
Prevention Against Other Maladies 290 

Bad Breath— What are the Causes of Bad Breath ?— Sources 

of Bad Breath 293 

What We may Expect ....... 300 

Mysterious Providence — An Illustrative Anecdote — A 

Bad Lot . . . . • 30 i 

Influence of Imagination . . . . .312 

Alcoholic Drinks 314 

Other and Secret Abuses 332 

Tobacco and the Stomach— Excuses for Using Tobacco — 

How Tobacco Hurts Man 33G 

Our Cooks— Another Glimpse at the Picture— W T hy 
not have Yankee Cooks ?— Success in Finding a Yankee 

Cook 357 

Keceipts for Good Foods 3G7 



8 CONTENTS. 

PAG* 

Our Kitchens ..-•■.« 385 

Adulterations of Food — Adulterating Substances — Adul- 
teration of Bread — Alum is Poisonous — Adulterations in 
Tea — Adulterations of Coffee — Adulterations of Butter- 
Adulterations of Honey — Pepper, Mustard and Cayenne — 
Confectionery, Vinegar, Pickles, Preserved Fruit?, Meats 
and Fish 387 

Final Chat with the Reader 401 



PREFACE 



When* this work was nearly written, my 
good friend the publisher suggested the four 
illustrations, which I am sure will please the 
reader. It never occurred to me before, but it 
is the true way to illustrate a health book. 

The pages of such works are generally adorned 
with pictures of cheerful stomachs and skeletons. 
There is no more reason why a health book 
should present these forbidding pictures than 
that a love story should give views of the hero- 
ine's diaphragm. These anatomical details 
have no more connection with the health of the 
body than they have with the health of the 
soul. Reason as we may about the import- 
ance and sacredness of the backbone, it pre- 
sents, when separated from its surroundings, 
a scraggy, spidery appearance. I think such 
pictures have contributed not a little to the 
unpopularity of health books. Why may not 
a work upon this vital subject, in which every- 
body is interested, be embellished and enlivened 
by pleasant scene-pictures, which contribute so 



10 PREFACE. 

much to the attractiveness of works upon ath- 
letic sports, temperance, travels, etc.? It's a 
capital idea. I shall not forget it. 

I wish writers upon health would weave in 
their favorite thoughts with the finest senti- 
ments and passions. For several years I have 
had in pickle a love-story in which the hero- 
ine, instead of an "alabaster neck," " gazelle 
eyes," "wealth of rippling hair," "tiny feet," 
" fragile form," and all the rest of that rigma- 
role, shall have good digestion, a strong back, 
strong willing hands and feet, and be a brave, 
earnest worker. 

The great authoress of "Jane Eyre" dis- 
penses with physical beauty, and gives us in 
her heroine a plain, noble, moral character. 
Why will not some of our novelists produce a 
romance in which the fortunes of the heroine 
shall turn upon the possession of remarkable 
health ? It would prove an immense contribu- 
tion to public interest in the subject. Indeed, 
has not the greatest of French novelists already 
given us one of the most thrilling characters 
whose fortunes hinge upon the possession of 
great physical strength ? 



INTRODUCTION. 



There were seven of us in the party, and 
we had been looking forward to the ascent of 
the mountain for weeks. In our little company 
was a New York surgeon — a born leader and a 
person of uncommonly handsome physique. 

His frail wife, who had determined that she 
would not stay down in the valley while we 
were up in the heavens, declared that if she 
gave out, she would cling to the Doctor's back 
and go to the very top. 

"When within sight of the Halfway House, 
we sat down by the roadside for our third 
breathing-spell. The Doctor was blowing at a 
great rate. 

" Well, Doctor, what's the matter with you ?" 
asked the Colonel. 

" Oh, it's this miserable liver of mine ! A 
man may look a very Hercules, but if his 



11 



12 INTRODUCTION, 

stomach and liver refuse to work, all the hick- 
ory in his muscles is changed into basswood." 

"Yes," exclaimed the little wife; "I believe 
that is true. The Doctor had rheumatism for 
years, still he kept up good courage and per- 
formed an immense amount of work. But 
just as soon as he was taken with this trouble 
in his digestion, he lost all courage, and hasn't 
seemed like himself since. Now everything 
is a mountain to him." 

"While you are talking, I am taking cold/' 
groaned the Doctor; "] reckon we had better 
pull on." 

Arrived at the Hallway House, we drank 
four bottles of the smallest beer I ever tasted, 
and when "time" was called again, the Doctor 
utterly refused to come to the scratch. 

"It's no use," he said; 4i I can't go another 
step." 

"But," we exclaimed, "we will wait half an 
hour for you; we can't go without you.' 1 

" You may wait half an hour or half a year ; 
it will make no difference. I tell you I can't 
climb another inch." 

" But, my dear husband, you certainly won't 







-\NV>\\^^ ON V^C.-vV.e~'-^--' ^ 



" This cursed tiling makes a dish-rag of a man."— P. 13. 



INTRODUCTION. 13 

sit down here and prevent these friends, who 
came by your invitation, from seeing what 
they have been looking forward to for a whole 
month ?" 

"Of course, Mary, I am perfectly ashamed 
and disgusted with myself, and if I had any- 
thing else — if I had rheumatism or consumption 
or an artificial leg, or anything else in the 
world but indigestion — I would go on, but this 
cursed thing makes a dish-rag of a'man." 

I moved that we proceed, Doctor or no Doctor. 
The little wife seconded the motion, and two 
hours more saw us standing on the very 
summit. 

By dark we were again at the Halfway 
House, where we concluded to remain for the 
night. 

Gathered in the little parlor, we listened to 
the apology which the Doctor was disposed to 
make for his break-down. He began with — 

"Of course, Colonel, you are all disgusted 
with my miserable fizzle, and I sha'n't try to 
defend myself; though, if you had seen as 
much as I have of the effects of dyspepsia, you 
would need nothing more by way of apology 



14 INTRODUCTION. 

than the simple fact that there is a snarl in 
my stomach and liver, 

" If a man has consumption, he will keep up 
good courage to the last: the very day he 
dies he will tell you what he is going to do 
when he gets well ; while if a man is dys- 
peptic, he cries out, like the Frenchman, 'I 
will drown ; nobody shall save me !' You see, 
Colonel, the philosophy of the thing is this: 

"A man's brain and muscles must be nour- 
ished. That nourishment must come from his 
stomach. Now, suppose the stomach is full of 
acidity and gas? Then what? Well, just 
look at me, and you will see what. Why, 
Colonel, one year ago I had rheumatism so 
badly that I could not move without suffering, 
but if I had had that pain multiplied by ten 
this morning, I would have gone with you if 
every step had made me cry out. But dys- 
pepsia takes all the ' tuck ' out of a man — not 
only out of his body, but out of his soul. It 
makes him mean, sneaking, utterly unreliable. 
Colonel, I wouldn't trust a dyspeptic's hand in 
my till. 

" When my stomach and liver were healthy, 



INTRODUCTION. 15 

I stood up like a man. Now I have no con- 
fidence in myself; I can't look people in the 
face ; my nerves are utterly unreliable ; in fact, 
I left the city to escape professional responsi- 
bilities which I felt were too much for me. 

"You know, Colonel, I used to be in the 
army: I was at Fortress Monroe fifteen months. 
"When I saw the commissary officers distrib- 
uting their stores to the men, I used to think 
what a perfect illustration of the stomach in a 
man's body this great commissary cellar is. 

"Suppose this fortress were besieged. The 
enemy attacks here to-day, there to-morrow. 
"We lose a good many men, our hospitals are 
full, but we have no thought of surrender. So 
long as we have men to work a single gun, we 
thunder defiance at them. But suppose the 
rations give out. Now, no matter how many 
men we have, day by day, hour by hour, our 
courage oozes out, and at length we lie down 
and let them come and take us. 

" So, Colonel, it is with the stomach. You 
may cut off a man's leg or his arm, you may 
knock out a teacupful of his brains, you may 
cut and carve him pretty freely, still, he will 



16 INTRODUCTION. 

sing and laugh and keep his pluck, provided 
his stomach and liver are on duty. But let 
them fail, let the commissariat give out, let the 
rations which the stomach should supply to 
brain and muscle fail, the man will sneak away 
or lie down and whine." 

For years I have been watching and study- 
ing the habits of my countrymen. We are a 
nation of dyspeptics. I am sure I have come 
to understand the reasons for it. 

In this work I shall present the results of 
my thirty years of observation and reflection 
upon this vital subject. 



Our Digestion. 



WANTED, by a South Carolina planter, a 
wife. She must be under thirty years 
of age, must have a good disposition and good 
teeth. Address ." 

The above advertisement I found in the 
New York Herald, and thought it worth pre- 
serving. 

I know nothing of this wife-hunter, but 
venture the opinion that he is an uncommonly 
bright fellow, who has been using his eyes and 
wits, and knows exactly what he wants. 

Miss Flora. " A man ought to be ashamed 
of himself to examine a woman's teeth as if he 
were buying a horse !" 

" Miss Flora, you may sneer as much as you 
please; I tell you that man knows what he 
is about !" 

Miss Flora. " That's just all the sentiment 

you men have about women. You study our 

points, and having weighed and measured us, 

2* u 



18 OUR DIGESTION. 

you look at our teeth, and then you decide 
whether or not we will do." 

" Miss Flora, you put the case too strong ; 
but I will say that a man who, in selecting a 
partner for life, pays no attention to the matter 
of health, deserves to be condemned to spend 
his life nursing an invalid." 

This planter may be the most mercenary 
wretch in existence, but his advertisement 
shows nothing of it. He has noticed that good 
teeth mean good digestion and a sweet breath. 
Are not these important in a wife ? 

Health is impossible without good digestion, 
and good digestion is almost impossible without 
good teeth. Bo you see the South Carolina 
gentleman is, after all, on the right track. 

Good Teeth very Beautiful. 

I really don't blame the girls for talking in 
the streets with their mouths wide open, for, 
although sometimes they may not speak quite 
so plainly, they do show their teeth to ad- 
vantage ; and especially when they give one of 
those little, short, open-mouthed laughs, now 
so common among girls, in which they open 
the mouth so wide that you can see the entire 
thirty-two teeth. I do not blame them, for a 
mouthful of pearls is very beautiful. I don't 



WHY BO OUR TEETH DECAY? 19 

care what the nose and eyes may be, if the 
mouth shows complete rows of brilliant gems, 
that face is a fine one — a sweet, wholesome 
one. While no matter how fine the eyes and 
nose, if the mouth shows decayed, blackened 
teeth, that face can't be a fine one — it is not 
sweet and wholesome. 



Why do our Teeth Decay? 

Now listen to the usual answers. 

1st. " Because we eat sweet things. Do you 
not remember how the affected tooth aches 
when sugar comes in contact with it ?" 

2d. "Because we eat sour things — acids. 
We use lemon juice, vinegar, and other acids, 
and they destroy the enamel of the teeth, and 
then the work of destruction goes on." 

3d. " Because we use very hot and very cold 
food and drinks. We take into our mouths hot 
coffee, then ice water, now a scalding pudding, 
then ice cream. These extremes crack the 
enamel, and thus begin the work of destruc- 
tion." 

4th. " Because we use saleratus in our food. 
When saleratus was first introduced into New 
England we had one dentist, now we have 
thousands. Don't you see it is the saleratus ?" 

I have no doubt that all of these things are 



20 OUR DIGESTION. 

bad for the teeth, but you may indulge in every 
one of them and not lose your teeth, if you will 
keep them clean ! Clean teeth will not de- 
cay. Look at that man's front teeth ; see how 
white and clean they are. How long do you 
think it would take that front, flat, white sur- 
face to decay if kept as clean as it is now? 
Never, you say. You are right. Now let me 
ask you another question. How long would it 
take the surface between the teeth to decay if 
kept equally clean? I answer for you, it would 
not decay in a hundred veal'-. I will show yon 
as many white black-birdfl as you will .-how me 
clean white teeth beginning to decay. It is, 1 
think, a physiological impossibility. 

All there is of this business is simply this: 
keep your teeth clean and they won't d 

How shall they be kept clean? Of course 
with a tooth-brush, says some one. Yes, a 
tooth-brush is a good thing, hut one good tooth- 
pick is worth an armful of tooth-brushes. The 
tooth-brush does well in keeping the flat side 
of the teeth clean. But on those flat surf 
the food does not stick, and so there is little 
tendency to decay. 

The mouth is a warm place, nearly a hun- 
dred degrees by the thermometer. It is never 
so warm in the shade in this climate. And 
yet in our warmest summer weather a piece 



WHY BO OUR TEETH DECAY? 21 

of meat begins to decay in twenty-four hours. 
If we eat meat to-day for dinner, the little 
pieces which find their way between our teeth 
will, exposed to the heat of the mouth, begin 
to decompose before to-morrow noon. If these 
particles of food are left between our teeth and 
allowed to decompose, ought we to be surprised 
that the teeth and gums should suffer ? I am 
rather astonished that they do not take on dis- 
ease even earlier. 

A tooth-brush will not go between the teeth 
(especially the double teeth, where the decay 
begins first) and remove those bits of food. 
The tooth-pick is the great preserver of our 
teeth. The brush helps the teeth to look white, 
but the means of preservation must be some- 
thing which goes between the teeth and re- 
moves the particles of food which find their 
way there when we eat. 

Details. — 1st. On rising from the table use a 
goose-quill tooth-pick thoroughly, and rinse the 
mouth, so as to remove such particles as the 
tooth-pick may have left behind. 

2d. On lying down at night use a tooth- 
brush, broad and soft, with pulverized soap and 
prepared chalk, with a little camphor and orris 
root to give a pleasant flavor. Do the same 
thing on rising in the morning. 

3d. As often as you discover any tartar 



22 OUR DIGESTION. 

about the necks of your teeth go to a dentist, 
have the tartar carefully and thoroughly re- 
moved, and then scour away with your brush 
and the above dentifrice, which the nearest 
druggist will prepare for you. 

Parents, see that your children attend to 
their teeth. How they will mourn over their 
loss! Ah, what would I not give to restore 
some which I lost before I knew what 1 am 
telling you ! 

So complete is the protection afforded by 
cleanliness, that a cavity in a tooth, if excava- 
ted and kept clean, will not decay any further, 
I once knew a young lady whose front teeth 
were badly decayed. Two or three of them 
were mere shells. Coming inl n of a 

fortune, her friends urged attention to her teeth 
as befitting the new surroundings. She had a 
particular dislike of small points and masses of 
gold shining out when she spoke or laughed. 
She came to consult me, and I advised the 
thorough removal of the d 1 matter by a 

dentist and the use of a syringe with warm 
water, after each meal, to keep the cavil 
clean. After a week's practice this would take 
but a minute. It was more than twenty years 
a<ro that this vouns; woman's teeth were ex - 
vated by the dentist. She lias kept those cav- 
ities clean. I cannot see that in these years the 






CURIOUS FACT ABOUT TEETH. 23 

teeth are changed. I never saw gold plugging 
preserve teeth more perfectly. I firmly believe 
that if the teeth were skinned — deprived of 
their enamel — and were kept perfectly clean, 
even the naked bone would not decay. 

The dentist is a most useful member of society, 
and should be visited frequently with reference 
to the possibility of any new points of decay. 

Curious Pact About Teeth. 

Where teeth are extracted and immediately 
replaced in their sockets, they not unfrequently 
remain firm in the jaw for years. 

Thirty odd years ago, when I first began to 
study medicine, I thought after three days' 
study it was high time I should begin to prac- 
tice. A girl living in my mother's family was 
attacked with a severe toothache, and, of course, 
applied to the new doctor. The doctor exam- 
ined the case very critically, and decided, after 
the gravest thought, that it was a case of pain 
in a tooth, and at length came to the conclusion 
that said tooth must be extracted. In no other 
way, with all his experience, could he promise 
to relieve the patient. The maternal head of 
the household was called in consultation, and 
was rather disposed to favor pulling the tooth 
instead of extracting it. But the doctor was 



24 OUB DIGESTION. 

firm in his conviction, basing his opinion on 
the results of the thousands of similar cases 
which had fallen under his observation. The 
doctor had not at that time ever seen a tooth 
extracted, and so practiced on the way from the 
office on the end of his thumb with the hook 
of the turnkey, so as to learn just how to seize 
upon the tooth, and thus fully to prepare him- 
self to meet with unfaltering courage and cool- 
ness this trying emergency in his professional 
experience. 

The offending tooth was the one immediately 
behind the eye-tooth. In my trepidation I al- 
lowed the hook to touch the eye-tooth as well, 
and drew them both out, the eye-tooth being 
entirely sound. Immediately, and without any 
definite notion of what I was doing, I replaced 
the eye-tooth in its socket. Having recovered 
from the hand-trembling and excitement inci- 
dent to my acute sympathy with the deceased, 
or rather with my suffering patient, I at once 
saw that it was very important that she should 
keep her tongue away from this eye-tooth, so I 
suggested the chances of a gold tooth in the 
emptied socket, and urged the importance of 
keeping everything away from that part of her 
mouth. The eye-tooth stuck in its place and 
remained, serving faithfully many years. 

There is a gentleman now living in Xew 



CURIOUS FACT ABOUT TEETH. 25 

York City who has three beautiful front teeth 
which he purchased from the mouth of an 
Irishman. His own decayed teeth were re- 
moved, and instantly Patrick's were transferred. 
In the case of two of these teeth the success 
was complete, and even the third one the gen- 
tleman retains, though it is loose and seems 
to have no vital connection with his jaw. 

Not unfrequently the teeth of young animals 
have been quickly transferred from their sock- 
ets to the pared comb of a cock and a nutritive 
circulation established. 

I used to know a young lady who had a de- 
cayed front tooth. It was so exceedingly sen- 
sitive that she thought it impossible to have 
those sharp-pointed dental instruments thrust 
into the cavity, and, indeed, almost went into 
hysterics when an excavation was attempted. 
At length she was advised, as the process of 
destruction was going forward and she must 
soon lose the tooth, to be etherized and have 
the tooth extracted and instantly returned to 
its place. Of course we all know now that 
there was a much simpler plan for destroying 
the nervous sensibility, but in this case the ex- 
traction was accomplished and the tooth imme- 
diately replaced. The circulation was re-estab- 
lished, and in a few weeks the tooth was so 
firmly fastened in its socket that it bore the 



26 OUR DIGESTION. 

necessary force in plugging, and has remained 
a good tooth for many years. 

If it were practicable to determine the exact 
form of the portion enclosed in the socket by 
an examination of the protruding part of a 
tooth, I have little doubt that it might become 
very common to transfer teeth from one mouth 
to another. Precious as our teeth are, many 
persons could be found who for a consideration 
would part with the most beautiful ones. 

The introduction of rubber instead of . 
for plates for artificial teeth is a great improve- 
ment. A good honest dentist — and I think 
there are a great many such — will furnish very 
good substitutes for the natural teeth if y<>u 
will give him a commission to spend as much 
time as he finds necessary in making them. 






MASTICATION. 27 



MASTICATION. 



My old friend Dr. R., the dietetic reformer, 
used to say that one Graham cracker eaten in 
his way gave more pleasure than dining at 
Delmonico's in the usual way. 

I said to him one day, " Come, let me see 
you eat a cracker in your way." 

He brought the cracker, and took a seat in a 
comfortable chair. 

" You may think this a very simple affair," 
said he, " but I am going to show you the ripest 
wisdom, gleaned from my forty years of obser- 
vation and thought about health." 

"Well," I replied, "I am impatient to see 
you begin." 

"Don't be in a hurry," he said. "People 
should not begin to eat in haste. Now you 
must not laugh at me. All my life I have 
thought about the laws of health, and I have 
reached the deliberate conclusion that the man- 
ner in which I am about to eat this cracker 
is the most important discovery I have ever 
made." 

" But," I exclaimed, " you have told me that 



28 OUR DIGESTION. 

same thing before. Pray, when are you going 
to begin on that cracker ?" 

"Never," he replied, "unless you let me 
begin in quiet and peace. A person can't eat 
by jerk." 

I remained silent a moment ; he took a small 
bite and began, and he went on chewing, and 
chewing, and chewing. 

"You would like a little drink?'' I sug- 
gested. 

"Never," he replied; "I never drink a 
mouthful of anything while I am eating." 

After a little, I said, "Well, if that ifl the 
way you are going on, I shall see how long it 
takes you to eat one cracker ;" and I looked 
at my watch. Waiting until the cracker had 
disappeared, and finding the time six minutes, 
I said, " Well, how do you like it P 

" Nothing sweeter ever entered my mouth." 
And then he added a fact which I have ascer- 
tained to be quite true, viz., that plain food, 
as, for example, brown crackers, Graham bread, 
cracked wheat, oat-meal cakes, etc., is, when 
masticated thoroughly, ground down to a fine 
paste, the most delicious food in the world. If 
one bolts his food, it is pleasant to have condi- 
ments spread over the surface : the palate is 
tickled as the food slips down ; but if one eats 
his food with a deliberate, thorough mastication, 



PHYSIOLOGY OF MASTICATION. 29 

the plainest food is the sweetest. To ascertain 
the truth of this, try alternately a mouthful of 
bread and butter and a mouthful of sponge- 
cake. 

If you swallow after a motion or two of the 
jaws, with a mouthful of some liquid, the cake 
will be found the sweeter, but if you masticate 
very thoroughly, one mouthful of good bread 
and butter will give more pleasure than ten of 
sponge-cake. 

This law holds good in every department of 
our life. One hour of the quiet, gentle com- 
fort and love of one's home, if well masticated 
and digested, affords more real happiness than 
many hours spent amidst the glare and parade 
of fashionable parties. 



About the Physiology of Mastication. 

"While the food is in the mouth we have 
direct control over it ; but as soon as it leaves 
the mouth, it passes beyond our control. It is 
of no use to say to a man after dinner, ".Digest 
your food well !" for he has no direct control 
over anything in the alimentary canal below 
his throat. But, while the food is in his mouth, 
it is entirely under his control, and he may 
contribute more than most people imagine to 
the completeness of the digestive function. 



30 OUR DIGESTION. 

Now, it happens that the human stomach 
cannot digest starch, and yet a yery large per- 
centage of our food consists of starch. We all 
know how much starch there is in the potato, 
in bread, and in various other articles of food. 

If, for example, a potato could be introduced 
into the stomach without passing through the 
mouth, the stomach would find it rather un- 
manageable. But if it can only remain a few 
moments in the mouth, and with the assistance 
of the teeth be ground into a paste and thor- 
oughly saturated with the saliva, the Btarch, 
of which it so largely consists, will under 
through the agency of tin 1 saliva, a chai 
which will make the subsequent steps in the 
digestive process easy. That change, it will 
surprise sonic people who have not studied it 
to learn, is one from starch to sugar. 

The saliva contains a remarkable ingredient 
known as ptyaline. The ptyaline compri 
about l-200th part of the saliva. T! 
traordinary agent has the magical power of 
changing the starch of the food into Bug 
and thus the potato is completely prepared for 
the subsequent steps in digestion. 

Whoever has taken a mass of wheat into the 
mouth has experienced a very pleasing illustra- 
tion of this change of starch into sugar. When 
the wheat is first crushed in the mouth i; 



A LADY I KNEW. 31 

sticky and has the starch taste, but almost in- 
stantly it becomes sweet. In this brief moment 
the saliva has changed the starch into sugar. 
Need anything more be said of the importance 
of a thorough use of the teeth upon the food ? 



A Lady I Knew. 

I used to know a delicate lady, long since 
dead, whose general health was never the best, 
and whose stomach was singularly sensitive. 
She was a thoughtful woman, and accomplished 
during her brief life a great amount of intel- 
lectual labor. If she ate an ordinary dinner, 
say a piece of beef and a slice of bread and a 
potato, the food within a few minutes would 
turn sour. She would have acid eructations, 
pain and burning, and sometimes sought relief 
from her sufferings by putting her finger in her 
throat to provoke vomiting. But when she ate 
the same dinner in a peculiar way she was 
never troubled. This way was to spend three- 
quarters of an hour, or an hour, upon a com- 
mon dinner. If she ground every particle of 
food, mixing it thoroughly with saliva, she 
could digest a large dinner without stomach 
symptoms. What was true to this unusual 
extent with Mrs. M., is true in some degree 
with every one. The fact is, our whole duty, 



32 OUE DIGESTION. 

after the selection of the right kind and quan- 
tity of food, is to perform the mouth service 
well. That being done, we may trust the di- 
gestive apparatus to attend to every other duty 
without our supervision. 



Conversation with a German. 

I was once stopping in a German city, and 
one day, when dining at a restaurant, I heard 
my own language spoken by some one in a 
neighboring stall. I immediately rose, stepped 
to the stall and said in English, "Did I not 
hear some one speaking English ?" 

"Oh yes," replied a middle-aged gentleman; 
" I can speak English." 

Having myself spoken German until I could 
hardly swallow, it was a great joy to convei 
during the dinner in my own dear mother 
tongue. 

" Have you a thin skin ?" he asked, while we 
were dining. 

" I don't know that I understand you." 

" Have you a thin skin ? I mean to say. are 
you sensitive to criticisms of your country or 
your countrymen ?" 

" I think I am not particularly sensitive, if 
the truth be told." 

" Well, then, let me tell you, that during my 






CONCLUSION ABOUT MASTICATION 33 

six years' residence in America I saw nothing 
which surprised me so much as the way in 
which Yankees eat and drink. Why, I really 
think it is worth an admission fee to stand at 
the end of a dining-room and see a hundred 
Yankees at the dinner-table. Each one has 
something to eat in one hand, and something 
to drink in the other. When the food hand 
goes up, the drink hand is down, and when the 
food hand goes down, the drink hand goes up. 
It always reminded me of one of those walking 
beams on a steamboat — when one end is up the 
other end is down. Now, sir, I think that is 
the reason that the American people are such 
dyspeptics. Why, I believe that in a world's 
exhibition of dyspeptics your country could 
show more than all the rest of the world." 



Practical Conclusion about Mastication. 

There can be no doubt that the design of 
the Creator is that we should prepare our food 
for the stomach by mastication, grinding it 
down to a paste and thoroughly saturating it 
with the juices of the mouth ; and, as diges- 
tion is the great function of the animal econ- 
omy, and as the contribution we make to it in 
the mouth is the only direct, voluntary contri- 
bution we are permitted to make, nothing is 



34 OUR DIGESTION. 

more important than the proper performance 
of that duty. 



Curious Facts about Mastication in Animals. 

The masticating apparatus occupies a great 
variety of positions in different animals. In 
some fishes it is in the mouth, in some it is in 
the pharynx, in others in the oesophagus, and 
again, in others, in the stomach. 

Birds have no teeth; their gizzard- do the 
grinding. This gizzard has thick, strong Avails 
lined with a very hard membrane. It has the 
power of crushing the densest substances. In 
addition, Borne birds are in the habit of .-wal- 
lowing gravel stone-, whicl hiding 
the food. The ostrich swallows pieces of iron, 
glass, etc., without any subsequent suffering. 
Needles, lances and other very sharp steel in- 
struments have been introduced into the giz- 
zards of birds, and upon subsequent examina- 
tion, their sharp edges have been found re- 
moved. 

Cud-chewing animals have broad, Hat teeth, 
which they keep going constantly, to prepare 
their coarse food for that wonderful change 
into beef and mutton. Carnivorous animals 
have no occasion to grind their food. 



SENSE OF TASTE. 35 

SENSE OP TASTE. 



Theke has been a great deal of very inter- 
esting discussion about the precise seat of the 
sense of taste. Experimenters have reached 
widely different conclusions. Some think that 
the sense of taste is confined to the very back 
part of the mouth and tongue and to the over- 
hanging palate ; in other words, to those parts 
wdiich are seen upon widely opening the mouth 
in the very back part. 

Magendie is of the opinion that the pharynx 
and even the gums and teeth are endowed with 
the sense of taste. Valentin and Wagner be- 
lieve that the top of the tongue, especially 
about the middle part and toward the tip, has 
no sense of taste whatever. 

There can be no doubt that the back part of 
the tongue, where the large papillae are seen, 
and the parts immediately surrounding, both 
at the sides and above, are most highly en- 
dowed with the sense of taste, while my own 
experiments lead me to the conclusion that the 
edges of the tongue and the tip are susceptible 
to sour, sweet and bitter substances in a moder- 
ate and varying degree. 

Ingenious experimenters have thought that 
certain portions of the mouth are devoted to 
bitter, sour and sw x eet tastes respectively. 



36 



OUR DIGESTION. 



WHAT CAUSES THE FEELING OP HUNGER 



It was thought for a long time that the sen- 
sation of hunger was produced by the gastric 
juiee attacking the coats of the empty stomach. 
When food was present the stomach juice waa 
busy with that; hut when the food had pass 
on and left the stomach empty! the powerful 
solvent attacked the stomach it- If. It was 
thought that this pro-lured the gnawing- of 
hunger. But when it was found oat that not 
a drop of this gastric juice was furnished while 
the Stomach was empty, that theory \ an- 

doned. 

Dr. Beaumont, who enjoyed the rarest oppor- 
tunities to study the functions of the stomach, 
suggested that the feeling of hunger was prob- 
ably owing to a distended state of the vessels 
which furnish the gastric juic And lie 

thought tins view was greatly strengthened by 
the prodigious rapidity with which the juic 
poured in upon the first introduction oi 
showing, as he argues, that the juice 
already existing and waiting in the vessels or 
follicles which furnish it. 

Again, physiologists have thought the fe< 



WHA T CA USES THE FEELING OF HUNGER. 37 

of hunger was caused by the two sides of the 
empty stomach rubbing against each other. 

But these and various other explanations 
which have reference to the condition of the 
stomach alone, fail to recognize the systemic 
want which is the real cause of hunger. 

Let me illustrate. I have eaten but two 
meals a day for many years — one at half past 
seven A. M. f the other at one o'clock P. M. 
Between my dinner and the next morning's 
breakfast is eighteen hours. During twelve of 
these, I presume, the stomach is empty ; but I 
never feel the sensation oii hunger. I have in- 
duced hundreds to live in the same way, and, 
after a short time, not one of them feels the 
sensation of hunger. 

A gentleman, now prominent in the field of 
health reform, was in my service some years 
ago as a teacher of gymnastics. He worked 
very hard, and evinced remarkable endurance. 
Now, when I state that he ate but one meal a 
. day and never suffered from hunger, it will be 
seen that the above theories fail to explain the 
sensation under consideration. The stomach 
must have been empty eighteen to twenty hours 
out of every twenty-four ; but, notwithstanding 
this emptiness, the gastric juice did not gnaw 
the lining coats, the vessels were not painfully 
distended, noi: did the coats of the stomach rub 



38 OUR DIGESTION. 

against each other, producing the discomfort of 
hunger. 

A man is hungry all over, his legs not less 
than his stomach. The feeling in his legs is 
restlessness, but the stomach is endowed with a 
peculiar sensibility, so that hunger in t hat- 
organ is a faintness and gnawing. The hunger 
is not dependent in the least upon the empti- 
ness of the stomach. For example, a man is 
convalescent from a fever. He has lost thirty 
pounds. The demand for nutriment u urgent. 
This man may fill his stomach with bak< 
bread and potatoes; his hunger is not appeased, 
for, although his stomach is distended, tfa 
tonic want is nut met, and his appetite* con- 
tinues. 

A striking illustration of this dependence of 
the local upon the general is found in thirsty 
which is felt mostly in the throat. If a tube 
be carefully introduced through a d g'g a 
into the stomach, and the dog, when very 
thirsty, be allowed to thrust his head into a 
tub of water, he will go on drinking for an 
hour, stopping only a moment to rest and take 
breath. The throat is flooded : but, as the fool- 
ing of thirst is dependent on a want of the sys- 
tem, and the water running out of the stomach 
through the tube fails to satisfy this want oi 
the system, so the thirst continues, though the 



WHAT CA USES THE FEELING OF HUNGER. 39 

animal may have swallowed gallons. But, if 
we inject a quantity of water into a yein of the 
leg of this thirsty dog, the feeling of thirst in 
his throat, though it has not been touched by 
a drop of water, will speedily disappear. 

Bernard made an opening into the oesopha- 
gus of a horse, tied the lower portion, and then 
allowed the animal to drink. He drank an 
immense quantity, but the water not passing 
into his stomach, the thirst was unquenched. 

Dr. Gairdner, of Edinburgh, reports an in- 
teresting case — that of a man whose throat 
had been cut and the oesophagus divided. The 
thirst, in this case, was insatiable, though many 
gallons of water were drank in a day, but 
when a little water was injected into the stom- 
ach, the sensation was soon relieved. 



40 . QUE DIGESTION, 



THE ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE COM- 
PARED. 



If we compare an animal with a vegetable, 
one of the first differences which will strike 
us is, that the vegetable stays in one place, 
while the animal moves aboul ; the vegetable 
is always at home, while the animal has juflt 
stepped out and won't be home until near dark. 
This distinction is not universal, hut it is a 
common distinction, nud one of the DIOSl salient 

points of difference. The tree in your door- 
yard lias stood exactly in that plan 
you can remember; it has never released its 
firm hold upon the earth at that particular 
spot, while the cow goes every morning to the 
pasture, wanders about all day. and returns in 
the evening. 

As the mouths of the vegetable are always 
in contact with its food, it needs no stomach to 
hold a quantity of nutriment ; hut the animal, 
which must be separated for considerable pe- 
riods from its supplies, has a sack to carry 
along a quantity. 

A man docs not co to mill after flour for 
each meal, but he brings home a large saek 



ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE COMPARED, 41 

upon his back, which may last him a month. 
So we all carry a sack, not upon our backs, but 
within the body, in which we bear about a 
quantity of food ; and in this way we get time 
for something besides eating. What helpless 
creatures we should be if we were compelled 
to stay in one place and suck constantly, like 
a vegetable ! 

In some animals with indifferent means of 
defence an enormous stomach is provided, 
which they fill with rapidity, swallowing the 
! food without chewing, and then, seeking a safe 
retreat, they deliberately raise the food from 
the stomach in small masses and chew it thor- 
oughly. 

This is a most interesting illustration of our 

Father's loving protection. How could the 

gentle sheep exist in a state of nature, sur- 

■ rounded by carnivorous animals, but for this 

: provision. Where food is in abundance, it can 

fill its great stomach in a few minutes, and then, 

hurrying away to some secluded spot, it con- 

'I ceals itself, and quietly raising the food which 

; it swallowed without mastication, one small 

! mass after another, it proceeds to grind it 

; without fear and with great enjoyment. 

He who can study the digestive apparatus 
of a sheep and conclude that its wonderful pro- 
visions came of chance, is a fool. 

4* 



42 OUR DIGESTION. 

The digestive mechanism of a chicken is 
another wonderful instance of Divine wisdom 
and benevolence. 

The study of such manifestations of God's 
care of his creatures awakens the deepest and 
truest religious passion. 






ONLY ONE STOMACH. 43 



ONLY ONE STOMACH. 



One reason for the marked constitutional 
disturbance which comes of stomach-troubles 
is, that we have only one stomach, and when 
that fails the whole body must fail. One lung 
may fail and the other go on well. I have 
known many such cases. A former patient of 
mine, now residing in Washington, has not 
taken a breath into his right lung in many 
years, and yet in an important public position 
he works better than the average. Of course 
his body is not vigorous, for his breathing is 
insufficient ; still he is a comfortable, healthy 
man, and is doing good service. 

The brain is in two halves ; one may retire 
from active service and the other go on. 

We have two legs, two arms, two eyes. We 
may lose one and not get off the track. 

But we have only one stomach, and if that 
gets off the track the whole man is knocked 
into a heap. 

My old school-fellow, Charles Brigham, lost 
his right arm in a woolen mill. The suffering 
was great ; the consciousness that he could no 
longer follow his trade must have pressed him 



44 OUR DIGESTION. 

hard, but lie was cheerful and brave until, 
lying in bed, lie had an attack of indigestion, 
and then he became almost wild with grief and 
despair over the loss of his arm. 



FOOD. 45 



FOOD. 



Food is generally divided into three classes : 
carbonates, nitrates and phosphates. The car- 
bonates are those foods in which carbon is the 
important element, the nitrates are those in 
which nitrogen is the important element, and 
the phosphates are those in which phosphorus 
is the important element. 

The carbonates furnish fat and fuel, the ni- 
trates feed the muscles, and the phosphates 
feed the brain and bones. 

Persons fed too much upon carbonates may 
be warm and fat, but will lack muscle and 
nerve ; those fed too much upon nitrates will 
possess great muscles, but will lack fat and 
nerve; those fed too much upon phosphates 
will have wide-awake brains, but will lack 
muscle and fat. 

If these leading elements in human food 
were not generally intermingled with each 
other, and it were possible for each to fulfill its 
purpose in the absence of the other, we could 
develop three distinct physiological classes of 
men : 1st. A warm and fat one ; 2d. One with 
large muscles ; 3d. One with large brains and 
nerves. 



46 OUR DIGESTION. 

Let us draw an ideal picture of the three 
classes. 

1st. The man fed on carbonates would be a 
white, greasy, sleepy lump. 

2d. The man fed on nitrates would possess 
immense muscles sticking out sharply in all 
directions, with no fat to fill up the spaces be- 
tween them. He would lack warmth, and 
possess little power of thought. 

3d. The man fed on phosphates would j 
sess an immense brain and intense will-power, 
but the muscles would be .soft, and the whole 
body emaciated and cold. 

But, as before remarked, these various ele- 
ments are intermingled more or less in the 
same articles of food. 

Nevertheless, there are articles of food, and 
even large classes of foods, which abound in 
one, and which possess a very small percent 
of the others. So certain articles of food con- 
tribute principally to plumpness and warmth ; 
others leave the body thin and cold, but give 
large muscles; others still tend to develop the 
brain and nerve, and feed but imperfectly the 
muscles and fat. 

Upon this division the modern scientific 
classification of human food is based. 

It is quite as easy to correct a physical defi- 
ciency in our bones, brain or nerves, in the 



WHEAT. 47 



temperature or the amount of fat, as it is to 
redeem the non-productive lands of our farms 
by introducing the deficient elements. 



Wheat. 

Wheat contains, of the carbonates, or heat- 
and-fat producers, sixty -nine per cent. ; of the 
nitrates, or muscle-makers, fourteen per cent. ; 
of the phosphates, or food for brain and bones, 
two per cent. These proportions constitute for a 
temperate climate/ and with a moderate degree 
of exercise, a model food. So if wheat were 
eaten in its natural condition, without bolting, 
it would supply all the needed elements in the 
human body, and would sustain life for an in- 
definite period. But in the process of bolting 
a large proportion of the nitrates and phos- 
phates is removed, so that bread made of super- 
fine flour will sustain life only a few weeks. 

Perhaps the most palatable way in which 
wheat can be eaten is when boiled whole and 
used with a little cream. For myself, I have 
never eaten any food so sweet and satisfactory 
to the palate as boiled wheat. When visiting 
some friends in Georgetown, Ky., many years 
ago, I was invited to dine with Professor 
Thomas, of the college located in that city. 
Mrs. Thomas served, as a dessert, boiled wheat 



48 OUR DIGESTION. 

with, cream and sugar. At that time I had 
never eaten it. The company, which was a 
large one, unanimously voted that they had 
never eaten a dessert so delicious. I have tried 
it many times since, and am always surprised 
that an article of food so cheap, so easily pre- 
pared, and every way so desirable, should nut 
find general favor. 

A man may perform hard labor on wheat 
and water for years; but give him as much 
superfine flour bread as he can eat, and add, if 
you please, butter and sugar, he will starve to 
death. 

Several of the menageries have starved their 
bread-eating animals by feeding them on white 

bread. If they had led them upon boiled 
wheat, and occasionally upon wheat without 
grinding or cooking, tiny would have flour- 
ished. 

Cracked wheat, or a flour made of wheat 
ground without bolting, is likewise very grate- 
ful and healthful. 

"The ordinary process ^ making superfine 
white flour results in the Loss of the most nu- 
tritious portion of the wheat. Under the mi- 
croscope, a grain of wheat divides into three 
principal layers — the hull, or bran pro] 
which is not nutritious ; the gluten, which 
next within the hull, and which is the most 



WHEAT. 49 

nutritious part of the grain; and the starch, 
from which the ordinary wheat flour is made. 
Usually the gluten is removed with the bran in 
the ordinary process, 

A mode of preparing wheat and other grain 
for grinding into flour has been invented in 
Basel, Switzerland, the object of which is to 
retain in the white flour the nutritive proper- 
ties which have heretofore been lost by the 
separation of the bran. This process, invented 
by Herr E. Weiss, of Switzerland, has been 
received with favor by scientific and practical 
men of Europe. It consists simply in moist- 
ening the wheat before grinding in a solution 
of caustic soda in water, one hundred and forty 
pounds of the liquid being required for two 
thousand pounds of grain. The solution is 
prepared by dissolving six and two-thirds 
pounds of caustic soda in one hundred and 
thirty-three pounds of water. The steeping, 
which occupies from fifteen to twenty minutes, 
can be done in vats similar to those used by 
brewers. The caustic solution loosens the hull, 
so that it may be removed by the slightest 
friction, leaving the gluten with the body of 
the grain. The flour thus prepared is as white 
as the present superfine, and contains all the 
highly nutritive properties of the Graham and 
bran breads." 



50 OUR DIGESTION. 

Superfine Flour. 

Suj>erfine flour, which is made of the inside 
or starch of the wheat, constitutes, with butter 
and sugar, a very large portion of our food ; 
but while this sort of food supplies fuel and 
fat, it is so poor in the elements that support 
muscle and brain, that people living on it must 
very soon become weak in muscle and uncertain 
in brain and nerve. I am reminded just here 
of the testimony of an intelligent physician, a 
friend of mine, who assures me that for many 
years he has prescribed for neuralgia, among 
his female patients, simply the use of bread 
made of unbolted flour; and by my advice he 
has recently prescribed boiled wheat, and has 
found the results in the cure of neuralgia to 
even more striking than the theory would 
promise. 

Recipe for Good Bread. 

Obtain good wheat and grind it without 

bolting; mix it with cold water until it is as 
thick as can be well beaten with a spoon : and 
after it is thoroughly beaten up, put it into a 
large iron pan, composed of many little ones, 
which must first be made hot ; put the pan 
quickly into a hot oven, and bake it as rapidly 
as possible. 



EYE, INDIAN CORN, ETC 51 

The heat of the oven instantly coagulates the 
gluten in the flour, which retains the steam 
within, whereupon the biscuits expand and be- 
come very light. This bread is very porous 
and digestible. It is delicious and wholesome 
if eaten hot, and is more so when cold. This 
is the best bread that can be made of wheat. 

If you prefer, raise the bread with good 
yeast, but don't use it until it is at least twelve 
hours old. 

Rye. 

Next to wheat, rye makes the best bread. 
It possesses the advantage that it remains moist 
for a long time. 

Indian Corn. 

Indian corn is an excellent and very strong 
nourishment. It contains a very large amount 
of oil, and so possesses remarkable fattening 
qualities, and is likewise remarkable as a heat- 
producer. 

Barley. 
This does not make light bread, but in the 
form of porridge or mush it is quite palatable, 
and is excellent food for the brain. Therefore, 
it constitutes capital food for literary men to 
use now and then. 



52 



OUR DIGESTION. 



Oats. 

This grain is very rich in nutriment for 
brain and muscle. It not only gives the horse 
his highest activity and endurance, but also 
supports the Highlander through the sevei 
toils. 



i 



Rice. 

This supplies a large amount of carbonates, 
and will, therefore, keep its consumers fat, but 
it lacks the elements which feed the muscles 
and brain. Bice eaters must be a weak and 

indolent people. Such a man as Gen, Grant 
could be reduced to a weak and useless Bub 
dinate in a few month- by eating rice alona 
When Ave learn that the people of India live 
6n rice, we no longer marvel thai a few thou- 
sand beef-eating Englishmen should hold them 
in subjection. 

Beans and Peas. 
These are strong ^nh. and, to those whose 
stomachs can digest them, they furnish the 
strongest nourishment for the muscles and 
brain. 



Potatoes. 



Potatoes, both Irish and sweet, are very poor 
in food for brain and muscle ; but, as the potato 



ANIMAL FOOD. 53 

contains a large amount of waste matter, it is 
a capital thing to mix with strong foods, like 
most meats. 

But the potato, if eaten alone, would make 
a poor, weak-minded and worthless people. I 
wonder how much the potato diet of the Irish 
has had to do in developing their peculiar cha- 
racter ? 



Turnips, Carrots, Squashes, Parsnips, Etc. 

This entire class of food is nearly all water, 
and is dear at any price, except during the 
hot season, when we need to flood the system 
with water and take very little strong nourish- 
ment. Then such water-foods fill the stomach, 
satisfy the appetite, and relieve the system of 
the unwelcome and unnecessary labor of di- 
gesting strong food. The hot season is the 
natural and proper one for these foods, which 
are ninety to ninety-seven per cent, water. 



Animal Pood. 

An ox contains thirty per cent, food for heat 
and fat, mostly for heat, fifteen for muscles, and 
four for brain. 

The five principal meats may be classified as 
follows, the first mentioned under each head 

5* 



54 OUR DIGESTION. 

standing first, and the last mentioned standing 
last: 

For heat and fat — pork, mutton, lamb, beef, 
veal. 

For muscle — beef, veal, mutton, lamb, pork. 

For brain and nerve — beef, veal, mutton, 
lamb, pork. 

So it will be seen that while pork stands 
highest as a producer of heat and fat, it stands 
lowest among the brain feeders, and low 
likewise, amon^ the muscle feedei 



Phosphorus a Source of Life. 

The vitality of plants, animals and men 
seems intimately associated with phosphorus. 

The brains and flesh of men, quadra] 
birds and fishes contain phosphorus just in 
proportion to their activity. Wild animals 
have much more than domestic; the most 
active birds, like the pigeon and the migrat- 
ing birds, more than domestic fowls and quiet 
and lazy birds. The migrating fishes, wh 
muscular power enables them to swim up rapids 
and over tails, contain more phosphorus than 
the flounder and halibut, which are clumsy and 
comparatively dormant. 

Insects which possess miraculous activity and 
strength of muscle abound in phosphorus. 



PHOSPHORUS IN THE HUMAN BRAIN. 55 

Active birds live on active insects. The slug- 
gish hen or robin is contented with corn or 
worms. The little king-bird, which is a match 
for the great hawk, lives on bees, hornets, or 
those very active flies that dart about in the 
upper air, all of which are particularly rich in 
phosphorus. A wild pigeon, which flies two 
hundred miles sometimes for its dinner, prefers 
millet and barley to all other grains. These 
contain three times the phosphorus of most 
grains. The tame pigeon, comparatively in- 
active, is satisfied with corn or other grains 
containing much less phosphorus. 



Phosphorus in the Human Brain. 

A celebrated French chemist has made many 
analyses of brains of children, idiots and men 
of different degrees of mental activity. Pie 
found the percentage of phosphorus to corre- 
spond exactly to the degree of mental activity. 
In the brain of infants he found .80 per cent, 
of phosphorus; in the brain of a youth, 1.65 
per cent., while in the brains of adults, 1.80 
per cent. ; in the brains of aged people, 1 per 
cent. ; while in the brains of idiots there was 
only .85 per cent. 

Another fact established by chemical analysis, 
which proves that the activity of the mind is 



56 OUR DIGESTION. 

dependent upon phosphorus, is this — immedi- 
ately after active mental labor, the excretions 
exhibit a larger proportion of phosphorus than 
at any other time, e. y., on Mondays and Tues- 
days in clergymen, and at court time in lawyers. 
Experiments of this kind go to show that the 
amount of phosphorus used up and excreted is 
in an exact proportion to the intensity and 
continuance of the mental effort, and, at these 
times, observing clergymen and lawyers have 
declared that their appetites call for phosphoric 
food, as fish, cheese, unbolted wheat bread, oat- 
meal or barley cakes, etc. ; and some desire and 
will have made for them cakes of bran, which 
contain all the phosphorus of the grain. 



Foods Rich in Phosphorus. 

Among vegetable foods, the following is their 
order as to richness in food for the brain: South- 
ern corn, beans, barley, oats, sweet potatoes and 
peas. 

The following is the order in which the 
meats stand as to their capacity lor supporting 
the brain : beef, veal, mutton and lamb. Pork 
has about nothing for the brain. 

The following is the order of the fishes : 
salmon, codfish, haddock, smelt, lobster, hali- 
but. 



FOOD BIC& IN PHOSPHORUS. 57 

Among the foods in common use, abandon- 
ing the above classification into vegetable, flesh 
and fish, the following may be relied upon as 
the natural order in richness of brain nourish- 
ment. 

The first article of food named is the richest 
in phosphates or brain nutriment, and as we go 
down the list they grow poorer and poorer ; but 
all that are named in this list may be regarded 
as ranking well among the brain foods : 

Salmon, codfish, haddock, smelt, lobster, beef, 
veal, Southern corn, mutton, lamb, beans, bar- 
ley and oats. 



58 OUR DIGESTION. 



THE POOD OP THE ANCIENTS. 



Not one of us but has felt a strong curiosity 
about the food of the ancients. 

Diodorus Siculus says that the first men 
ranged over the fields and woods in search of 
food, like the beasts, eating every wild herb 
they could find, and such fruits as the trees 
produced. 

An ancient writer affirms that the diet of 
the primeval race differed according to the pro- 
ductions of their respective countries, the Ar- 
cadians having lived on acorns, the Argives on 
pears, the Athenians on figs, etc. 

Plutarch relates that the Argives, led by In- 
achus, searched the woods for wild pears to 
support them. 

Pliny laments the savage condition of the 
first ages, " which subsisted on acorns." 

Galen not only thinks these accounts are 
true, but he tells us that " Acorns afford 
good nourishment as many sorts of grain ; that 
in ancient times men lived on acorns alone, and 
that the Arcadians continued to eat them long 
after the rest of Greece had made use of bread 



corn." 



THE FOOD OF THE ANCIENTS. 59 

Herodotus relates that upon the death of 
Lycurgus, the Lacedsemonians, meditating the 
conquest of Arcadia, were told by the oracle 
that there were among them the best acorn 
eaters, who would repel them in case they at- 
tempted to carry their arms thither, as after- 
ward happened. 

At length, by what steps we cannot know, 
agriculture, doubtless in its simplest, rudest 
forms, began. 

Hesiodus ascribes this invention to Ceres, 
and admonishes the husbandman to pray to 
Jupiter and to her before he enters upon his 
labors. 

Pliny attributes, still further, the invention 
of the plough, grinding corn and making bread 
to Ceres, and adds that " divine honors were 
paid her in Attica, Italy and Sicily on this 
account." 

At length, as the wonderful story goes, 
the Creator gave man permission to eat the 
bodies of animals. This is said to have been 
given first to Noah in the following words: 
"Every moving thing that liveth shall be 
meat for you : even as the green herb have I 
given you all things." 

And, immediately, another addition was 
made to man's stomach indulgences. "Noah 
began to be a husbandman, and he planted a 



60 OUE DIGESTION. 

vineyard, and lie drank of the wine and was 
drunken." 

Of course, lie could not permit his family to 
indulge in wine until he had first fully tested 
it upon himself. Might it not be poison? 
Might it not kill? With that self-sacrificing 
spirit so characteristic of man, Noah first tried 
it fully upon himself. 

Men struggle with all such enemies as alco- 
hol and tobacco with a grand masculine hero- 
ism. Sheltering wife and children in the 
bosom of a quiet home, man goes forth to 
brave the storm. In this field of heroic en- 
deavor woman has ever shown herself weak 
and uncertain. I have seen but two women 
who could "chaw" with assured success, and 
but very few whose smoking deserved to rank 
high. And as to whisky, women have ever 
shown themselves, as a sex, utterly incompe- 
tent. 

Beer was discovered not long after. Hero- 
dotus informs us that in the corn province of 
Egypt, where no vines grew, the people drank 
a sort of wine made of barley. This, it is 
thought, is the strong drink mentioned, to- 
gether with wine, in many places in the Old 
Testament. It is thought by those who have 
given most attention to the food of the original 



THE FOOD OF THE ANCIENTS. 61 

race, that different foods were introduced much 
in the following order, viz. : " Fruits, seeds, herbs, 
bread, milk, fish, flesh, wine and ale ; to which 
may be added butter, honey, eggs, olive oil and 
cheese." 



62 OUR DIGESTION. 



THE BEST FOOD. 



John Stebbins is a carpenter, and earns 
three dollars a day. At his modest home in a 
neighboring village you may find a bright, 
tidy little woman, with four as pretty children 
as you could wish to see. John is a brave, 
earnest chap, and is generally contented. 

Last autumn he was at work upon a high 
building, and the scaffold gave way. His com- 
panion was killed outright, but John caught 
his hands in the eave-trough, and hung on till 
they rescued him. Ever since then he has 
been worrying about life insurance. He 
dropped in to see me last Sunday, and recur- 
ring again to the subject, he declared, " I will e 
a policy of two thousand dollars, if I have to 
work nights for it. Suppose I had gone up 
with poor Ned, what would have become of 
Jennie and the little ones ¥* 

"Well, John, my boy, now I am at liberty, 
and I will devote a part of this Sunday to toll- 
ing you how to get rich. I can't think of a 
more holy occupation than telling you how to 
provide for your loved ones. John, is your 
wife a good cook ?" 



THE BEST FOOD. 63 

" Tip top, sir. Her mother was the best cook 
in town/' 

" Yes ; I know all about these best cooks. 
When I hear that a woman is the best cook in 
town, I am sure she is the worst. 

"John, what do you eat at your house? 
What did you have for breakfast this morn- 
ing?" 

"We had beefsteak, baked potatoes, buck- 
wheat cakes, bread and butter and coffee." 

"White bread?" 

" Yes ; I always get the best." 

"Well, how about your dinner?" 

"We had for dinner a small roast of beef, 
potatoes, turnips, squash, bread and butter and 
a bit of pie." 

"What will you probably have for sup- 
per?" 

" Can't say ; but last night our supper was 
hot biscuit and butter, with some peach pre- 
serves and a cup of tea. We always take a 
.light supper." 

"How much money do you save in the 
course of a year ?" 

" Not a dollar ! I had four hundred dollars 
when I was married, but to-day not a pica- 
yune !" 

" How much do you receive for your work ?" 

" About nine hundred dollars a year." 



64 OUR DIGESTION. 

" How much, do you think the rent, fuel, gas 
and clothing cost you ?" 

"Oh, I know all about it. They cost me 
just about three hundred and seventy-five dol- 
lars ; that leaves five hundred and twenty-five 
dollars for the table, and I tell you, with six of 
us, it's a tight squeak." 

" John, the clothing, rent, gas and fuel are 
reasonable, but the table expenses may- be re- 
duced." 

"It can't be done. We must have some- 
thing to eat." 

" If I will tell you how to feed yourself and 
family for two hundred dollars a year, better 
than you are now fed for five hundred and 
twenty-five dollars, will you try it ?" 

" Of course, you're joking." 

" Not a bit of it. I will tell you how to 
live better than you are now living : your teeth 
will be whiter, your breath sweeter, your 
strength more enduring, your bodies plumper, 
and your spirits better, for less than two hun- 
dred dollars per year, so that you will save, say, 
three hundred and fifty dollars, and be able to 
take out your insurance policy, and, besides, 
have two hundred dollars a year to spare. In 
brief, it will make you a rich man. Now I 
will tell you how this is done. I have lived in 
exactly the way I am about to describe for some 



THE BEST FOOD. 65 

time, not because it is economical, but because 
I like it, and,^ besides, it gives me greater 
strength and endurance. You have a good 
bead and I need not go into details, but will 
discuss the subject in a general way. 

" White bread, butter and sugar are common 
articles of food on American tables. They are 
poor trash, furnishing almost nothing for brain, 
muscle or bone. 

" Oat-meal, cracked wheat and corn are rare 
on our tables. They are strong, fattening foods, 
and furnish abundant nutriment for brain, 
muscle and bone. 

" Weight and strength obtained from white 
bread, butter and sugar cost ten times as much 
money as when obtained from oat-meal, cracked 
wheat and corn. 

"A roast of beef costs thirty cents per pound. 
It is not thoroughly cooked — the blood oozes 
from it when it is cut ; the ox staggers out of 
the car, after a journey of a thousand miles, 
feverish, exhausted, sick ; he is killed at once, 
and soon finds his way to our tables. In that 
half-cooked condition the flesh is not whole- 
some. Roasting and broiling leave the meats 
in a good part unchanged. Boiling and steam- 
ing will neutralize even the poison of the gen- 
uine cattle disease. 

"The French understand the economies of 

6*- 



66 OUR DIGESTION. 

the table. A Frenchman will take one pound 
of the toughest part of the neck of an ox, 
worth five cents, and, adding three cents' worth 
of bread and condiments, will make a stew 
which will give a better dinner to three persons 
than an American can furnish with roast beef, 
potatoes, bread, butter and pastry for fifteen 
times the money. I mean it will be more en- 
joyable, digestible and nutritious. 

" Wheat, oats and corn, cracked, boiled, and 
eaten with a little syrup or milk, are most pala- 
table. They are very strong foods and aston- 
ishingly cheap. I ate for breakfast this morn- 
ing two ounces of oat-meal cooked in water. 
With this I used about a gill of milk. Capital 
breakfast ; and it cost about two cents. For 
dinner I ate about three cents' worth of beef 
shank in a stew, with bits of bread, and closed 
the meal with a dish of white Southern corn 
seasoned with a little syrup. The cost of the 
meal was not more than four cents, saying 
nothing of the cooking. As I never eat any- 
thing after dinner, the cost of my food for the 
day is six cents. 

" There, John Stebbins, that's the way to do 
it. You can have an almost infinite variety of 
food equally good and cheap. It only take- a 
month, perhaps a week, to learn to enjoy such 
food." 






HOW I HELPED MR. RICHARDS. 67 

How I Helped Mr. Richards. 

Not long since a middle-aged man, evidently 
a hard worker, with bent form and soiled clothes, 
came into my office and said, 

" Doctor, I thought I would venture to drop 
in, tell you my story, and ask you some ques- 
tions. 

" My story is this : I am a blacksmith, and 
receive fifteen dollars a week for my regular 
work. I have a sickly wife and five children. 
My wife finds her housework all she can do. 
My children, except the youngest, are in 
school. 

" For rent I pay two dollars a week ; cloth- 
ing costs about two dollars ; fuel and light cost 
about two dollars more. Now you see that is 
six dollars a week, and we have but nine dol- 
lars left to feed seven mouths." 

" Well, do you succeed in keeping them well 
filled with that money ?" 

" No, Doctor, it cannot be done ; so I have 
to do some over-work, and worse than this, we 
are constantly getting into debt. I cannot bear 
to be in debt, and as I begin to feel old age 
creeping on, I am discouraged and heart- 
broken. Now can you tell me any way out ot" 
this bad business ?" 

I said to him : " The rent, fuel, lights and 



68 OUR DIGESTION. 

clothing I think are all reasonable. You can 
hardly hope to reduce the expense in those 
departments. The only possible economy must 
be found in the feeding department." 

"Well, there is no use in talking about that ; 
we must have something to eat, or I can't work, 
and the children can't grow. In fact, unless 
we have something to eat we shall starve." 

" Now I have learned your story, you may 
go home, come again one week from to-night, 
and I will give you some written advice about 
your table, to which you shall be most wel- 
come." 

The following is what I prepared for him : 

Advice for Mr. Richards. 

You must have meat every day of the year. 
Your children should have some animal food 
during the autumn, winter and spring. But 
meat is very high. A sirloin steak costs in our 
market from thirty-five to forty cents a pound. 
And even this is not the most expensive part 
of the animal. But do you know that in an 
ox which, dressed, weighs eight hundred 
pounds, only a very small part brings this high 
price? And do you know that that small part 
is neither the most nourishing nor the most 
palatable? While certain portions of the ani- 
mal sell for thirty to forty cents a pound, th< 



ADVICE FOR MR. RICHARDS. 69 

are portions, not one whit less palatable than 
the tenderloin (when properly cooked), that 
can be bought for a very small price ! Take, 
for example, what is called the shank ; the very 
best can be bought for five cents a pound, and 
a single pound cooked in a stew, with bits of 
bread, will make a meal for yourself and your 
entire family. The French soldier understands 
the secret of getting much out of little. He 
will take the coarsest bit of the cheapest meat, 
and with a few crumbs of bread, an onion and 
a condiment or two, make a delicious dinner. 

When you go to the market for meat, don't 
buy tenderloin, but buy what are called coarse 
meats. If I were buying for my wife and self, 
I should invariably buy such pieces, because I 
really think them, aside from the question of 
cost (when cooked in one of the many stews), 
the most delicious parts of the animal. So 
purchase for your dinner five to eight cents' 
worth, say ten cents' worth, of the cheap, coarse 
bits. Among our foolish people the competi- 
tion is so slight over these coarse meats that 
the butchers have to put all the price on the 
small part which is in active demand, and sell 
the rest for a mere nothing. I cannot go on to 
tell you just what pieces you should buy, but 
buy such pieces as are sold in this Boston 
market — the highest market in the United 



70 OUR DIGESTION. 

States — for three, four, five or six cents a 
pound. Good, solid meat is sold for these 
figures, and only needs to be steamed, or to be 
made into a stew, to be as tender and delicious 
as the exjDensive parts of the creature. The 
neck of the chicken is the most delicious part 
of the animal. The neck of a beef, when made 
tender, comes near being the most delicious 
part of that animal. Steaming and boiling are 
the best modes, and these modes of cooking 
have this additional advantage — you can put 
in any of the palatable condiments, which i 
almost nothing. If you roast or broil you can- 
not permeate the meat with these delicate, 
savory condiments, but in a stew you can iill 
every part with any which your palate may 
fancy. 

The other day I devoted an hour or tw 
inquiries of the leading market-men about the 
prices of different parts of the animal. They 
generally agreed upon the foil ;: That in 

an ox which, when dressed, weighs 800 pounds! 

60 pounds bring 30 to 40 cents a pound. 
140 " " 20 " 

400 " " 12 " 

30 " " 10 " 

40 " " 6 " 



90 
40 



Q 

o 



ADVICE FOB MB. BICHABDS. 71 

I have said all I need to say to an intelli- 
gent American on the subject of animal food. 
Perhaps I should add that an occasional use of 
fish, which, if you live near the coast, is always 
cheap, may be added by way of variety. 

Leaving the meats, let us speak of the veg- 
etable food. Oatmeal in the form of porridge, 
or in the form of cakes, is one of the most nu- 
tritious of foods. A pound of oatmeal is worth, 
as nutriment, six pounds of superfine white flour, 
and, pound for pound, costs less than wheat 
flour. It is most substantial and nutritious 
food. Not only does it sustain our powerful 
horses, but it develops the magnificent High- 
lander. Oatmeal porridge, or oatmeal mush, 
with a little milk, is a breakfast which would 
not only answer for your children, but which, 
in proper quantity, would abundantly support 
you during the forenoon. I noticed when you 
were here that you were very thin. Oatmeal, 
freely used, will help to make you plump. 

Cracked wheat, or whole wheat, when prop- 
erly cooked, is really one of the most delicious 
articles of food ever eaten by man. One pound 
of cracked wheat will give as much strength 
of muscle and nerve as seven or eight pounds 
of common baker's bread. 

Hominy, samp and hulled corn are among 
the most substantial and lasting of human 



72 OUB DIGESTION. 

foods, and are very cheap compared even with 
wheat. 

One pound of cheap meat boiled to rags, 
with a quart of white beans, and eaten with 
brown bread, will make a dinner that a king 
might luxuriate upon. Your family of seven 
persons would not be able to consume such a 
dinner. It would be twice as much as the 
seven could eat at one meal, while the entire 
cost, saying nothing of fuel, would be less than 
a quarter of a dollar. 

One pound of cheap meat (when I say cheap, 
I mean what is called coarse meat, simply those 
portions which are not tender if cooked by 
roasting or broiling, but which, I repeat, con- 
stitute the best parts of the animal when cooked 
in the way I have described), boiled with one 
pound of split peas, and served with live cents 1 
worth of coarse bread, will make an abundant 
and delicious dinner for yourself and family. 

Poultry and potatoes are most expensive 
articles of food. A single bushel of beans, 
properly cooked with condiments, will furnish 
not only more palatable food, but more nutri- 
ment than ten bushels of potatoes. 

Silly Pride of Poor People. 
You are a stranger in Boston. I know a 
very large part of the people. Let us take a 



SILLY PRIDE OF POOR PEOPLE. 73 

walk; We will go up Tremont street. It is 
eight o'clock in the evening, and great numbers 
are out in full dress. 

Do you see that gentleman in the handsome 
black suit, kid gloves and gold-headed cane ? 
That man is a barber. I don't know about his 
wages, but I venture to say that they are not 
more than twelve dollars a week. When his 
board is paid, he has just enough left to keep 
up that handsome dress. 

I must not point, that you know is vulgar ; 
but do you notice that tall lady with the rich 
brown silk, with the end of it dragging on the 
sidewalk? She is a dressmaker. And that 
small, quick-stepping young woman, with the 
over-trimmed dress, just behind, is a clerk in 
one of our dry-goods stores. 

Look across the street. Do you see that large, 
fleshy man ? He is worth about two millions. 
His dress is not so rich, you will observe, as 
that of several men whom we have just passed, 
and some of them I know to be persons who 
work by the day. 

Now the same foolish emulation of the rich, 
the same false ambition which inspires this 
waste of everything upon dress, this living 
from hand to mouth without any reserve for a 
rainy day, is precisely the" spirit in which peo- 
ple go to market and compete for those high- 

7 



74 OUR DIGESTION. 

priced meats. That foolish pride is the enemy 
which stands between many a man and a bank 
account. 

My friend Mr. Creighton, a wide and keen 
observer of men and things, said to me this 
morning in discussing this subject, " Why, I 
know several rich families on whose table a 
hasty-pudding is a frequent dish; but I don't 
know one poor family in which it is used. 
They are afraid it may seem a poor mans dish. 
Tell 'em," he said, " to mix oatmeal with the 
Indian, half and half, in making the hasty- 
pudding." 

I will add that my friend, Stephen S. F< 
assures me that the biggest day's farm-work he 
ever did was performed on hasty-pudding. 



An Experiment in Cheap Living*. 

It is now Saturday afternoon, and I will tell 
you in confidence, my dear reader, a little of 
my personal, private experience during the } 
week. 

On Sunday morning last, I thought I would 
try for a week the experiment of living cheaply. 

Sunday breakfast, hulled Southern corn, with 
a little milk. My breakfast oa cents. I 

took exactly the same thing for dinner. Food 
for the day, six cents. I never take any sapper. 



AN EXPERIMENT IN CHEAP LIVING. 75 

Monday breakfast, two cents' worth of oat- 
meal, in the form of porridge, with one cent's 
worth of milk. For dinner, two cents' worth 
of whole wheat, boiled, with one cent's worth 
of milk. Food for Monday, six cents. 

Tuesday breakfast, two cents' worth of beans, 
with half a cent's worth of vinegar. For din- 
ner, one quart of rich bean porridge, worth one 
cent, with four slices of coarse bread, worth two 
cents. Food for Tuesday, five and a half cents. 

Wednesday breakfast, hominy made of 
Southern corn (perhaps the best of all food for 
laboring men in hot weather), two cents' worth, 
with one cent's worth of syrup. For a dinner 
a splendid beef stew, the meat of which cost 
two cents. A little extravagant, you see. But 
then, you know, " a short life and a merry 
one." Perhaps you don't believe that the 
meat was purchased for two cents? But it 
was, though. The fact is, that from an ox 
weighing eight hundred pounds nett you can 
purchase certain parts weighing about one 
hundred pounds, for three cents per pound. 
Two-thirds of a pound made more stew than I 
could eat. There was really enough for two of 
us. But then, you know how careless and reck- 
less we Americans are in regard to our table 
expenses, always getting twice as much as we 
need. I must not forget to say that these 



76 OUR DIGESTION. 

coarse, cheap portions of the animal are the 
best for a stew. The very genius of waste 
seems to have taken possession of me on that 
fatal day. I poured into my stew all at once, 
slap-dab, a quarter of a cent's worth of Leices- 
tershire sauce, and as if to show that it never 
rains but it pours, I closed that gluttonous scene 
by devouring a cent's worth of hominy pud- 
ding. Food for Wednesday, eight and a quarter 
cents. 

The gross excess of Wednesday led to a very 
moderate 

Thursday breakfast, which consisted of oat- 
meal porridge and milk, costing about two and 
a half cents. For dinner, cracked wheat and 
baked beans, two cents 1 worth of each, milk, 
one cent's worth. Food for Thursday cost 
seven and a half cents. 

Friday breakfast, Southern hulled corn and 
milk, costing three cents. For dinner, another 
of those gormandic surfeits which so disgraced 
the history of Wednesday. Expenses for the 
day, eight and a quarter cents. 

This morning when I went to the table I 
said to myself, " What's the use of this econ- 
omy ?" and I made up my mind that for this 
day, at least, I would sink all moral restraints, 
and give up the reins to appetite. I have 
no apology or defence for what followed. 



AN EXPERIMENT IN CHEAP LIVING. 77 

Saturday breakfast, I began with one cent's 
worth of oatmeal porridge, with a teaspoonful 
of sugar worth a quarter of a cent. Then fol- 
lowed a cent's worth of cracked wheat, with 
half a cent's worth of milk. Then the break- 
fast closed with two cents' worth of milk and 
one cent's worth of rye and Indian bread. For 
dinner I ate half a small lobster, which cost 
three cents, with one cent's worth of coarse 
bread and one cent's worth of hominy salad, 
and closed with two cents' worth of cracked 
wheat and milk. Cost of the day's food, 
twelve and three-quarter cents. 

In all of these statements only the cost of 
material is given. 

Cost for the week, fifty-four and a quarter 
cents. 

Of course I don't pretend that everybody 
can live in this luxurious way. It isn't every- 
body that can afford it. I could have lived 
just as well, so far as health and strength are 
concerned, on half the money. Besides, on 
three days I ate too much altogether, and suf- 
fered from thirst and dullness. But then I 
may plead that I work very hard, and really 
need a good deal more food than idlers. Not 
only have I written forty odd pages of this 
book during the week, but I have done a large 
amount of hard muscular labor. 



78 OUR DIGESTION. 

By the way, I weighed myself at the begin- 
ning of the week, and found it was just two 
hundred and twelve pounds. Since dinner to- 
day I weighed again and found that I balanced 
two hundred and twelve and a half pound-. 
although it has been a week of warm weather, 
and I have had unusual demands for exertion 
of various kinds. 

But let me feed a family of ten instead of 
one person, and I will give them the highest 
health and strength upon a diel which will cost 
here in Boston not more than two dollars for 
the ten persons for a week. Let me transfer 
my experiment to the Far West, where wheat, 
corn, oats and beef are bo cheap, and the c 
of feeding my family of ton would be bo ridic- 
ulous that I dare not mention it lest you laugh 
at me. 

And so for from my family group being one 
of ghosts or skeletons, I will engage that they 
shall be plumper and stronger, healthier and 
happier, with clearer skins, brighter ej 
sweeter breaths, whiter teeth, and, in additi 
that they shall live longer than your Delmon- 
ieo diners, each of whom spends enough at a 
single dinner to feed my family ^^ ten for a 
week. Ami last, hut not least, they shall enj 
their meals vastly more than your I 
diners. 



STORY OF ANOTHER KIND. 79 

Story of Another Kind. 

About two weeks ago a friend of mine from 
the South was in town, and invited me to dine 
with him at a fashionable restaurant. 

We began with a little green turtle soup, 
which was fifty cents ; then we took a bit of 
spring lamb, with mint sauce, which was 
seventy-five cents; then a little sweet-bread, 
with Madeira sauce, at seventy-five cents ; then 
a bit of spring chicken, with truffles, at one 
dollar and forty cents. I said : 

" Hold on, Bob, hold on !" 

" No, sir ; you must go one or two more." 

So he called for plover ; this was one dollar 
and fifty cents. While this last was preparing, 
we indulged in salmon salad, which was sixty 
cents. 

We closed this little dinner with strawber- 
ries and cream, thirty-five cents. My friend 
having no fear of the temperance society before 
his eyes, indulged in a bottle of Madame Cli- 
quot, which was three dollars. Now supposing 
I had drunk the same thing, our dinner would 
have cost seventeen dollars and seventy cents. 
As it was the cost was fourteen dollars and 
seventy cents. This is not very high. At 
Delmonico's I have known two gentlemen to 
pay for dinner and champagne thirty dollars. 



80 



OUR DIGESTION. 



And even where a dinner table is spread for a 
large company, it is not uncommon to charge 
fifteen dollars a plate. I have heard of very 
much higher figures. 

So you see Bob and I were, after all, rather 
mean in our dinner. Bob said several times : 

"Why, what's the matter with you? you 
don't seem to have any appetite !" 

"Well, not much; the fact is the weather is 
so warm, one don't feel like eating; besides, 
you know, temperate eating is a sort of hobbj 
with me." 

But moderate as our dinner was, 1 c mldtake 
the money which was paid for it and feed thirty 
men for a week. And more than that, ingfa 
of their feeling stupid and tlm who 

dine fashionably do, my boarders should h 
the finest, brightest health, while not one of 
them should sutler gout or its cousin rheuma- 
tism. 

The last pages of this work are devoted to 
recipes for simple and delicious foods. 



DIFFERENT THEORIES OF DIGESTION. 



DIFFERENT THEORIES OF DIGESTION. 



Hippocrates thought digestion a process of 
stewing, and for a long time after him it was 
regarded as a cooking, effected by the heat of 
the stomach. 

Again, among the old physiologists digestion 
was considered a fermentation. They referred 
to the gas frequently escaping from the stomach 
as proof. 

Next, digestion was believed to be a putre- 
faction. 

Another set of physiologists imagined that 
trituration accounted for everything. They 
pointed to the gizzard of the fowl. There, 
said they, you see the process of digestion in 
its most perfect form; and in the human 
stomach we find various sets of muscles to 
churn or triturate the food. 

The next theory of digestion was the chem- 
ical. This school of physiologists maintained 
that the juices of the stomach dissolved the 
food chemically, and that if the stomach juices 
be pumped out and mixed with food, precisely 
the same changes will take place without, as 
within, the stomach. While this statement is 



82 pUB DldhsSTION. 

not correct, there is much truth in the ch< 
cal theory of digestion. It 
stride yet made toward the light in the pur- 
suit of this important physiological problem. 

It is perhaps not altogether modest thai 
although occupying a higher point in the | 
gress of this inv< ill declare that 

we know all, but tic anot be a shadow of 

doubt that the present tfa stion is 

the true and final one. 



True Theory of Digestion. 

Digestion is a vital j 
and mechanical /( 

While the motion of th I >m- 

ach is necessary to mingle ' &nd 

while the chemical Bolvei gtric 

juice is indispensable, both of th< 

cannot produce the tru Xhifl chyme, 

into which every kind of food is tr ted, 

can be produced nowhere m- 

aeh. In this respect chyme ia Other pa - 

duets of the body. We Learn all the 

constituents of the saliva, or the bil . but we can 
produce neither of them outsi the bod 

That mysterious force which 11 vital 

the force which determines all. Chemistry and 
mechanics play their part, but the all-deter- 



OUR IGNORANCE OF THE VITAL FORCE. 83 

mining, guiding and controlling power is the 
vital force. 



Our Ignorance of the Vital Force. 

Let me illustrate. A few years ago, while 
delivering a lecture in a neighboring city, and 
while denouncing that hydra-headed monster 
known as patent medicines, a manufacturer of 
a famous blood purifier interrupted me with 
several hard questions, spoken in a very loud 
and passionate manner. 

Famous Doctor. " Do you know what you 
are talking about, sir ?" 

Lecturer. " Well, I confess there are some 
things about it which I never could under- 
stand." 

Famous Doctor. "Well, sir, I have given 
forty years to the study, the profoundest study, 
of the human system, and I should like to put 
a few questions to you, sir, if you have no ob- 
jection." 

Lecturer. " Speak on." 

Famous Doctor. " Will you tell me what a 
fever is ?" 

Lecturer. " I don't know." 

Famous Doctor. " Will you tell me what 
an inflammation is ?" 

Lecturer. " I don't know." 



84 OUR DIGESTION. 

Famous Doctor. "Well, can't you explain 
the nature of salt rheum ?" 

Lecturer. " I cannot." 

Famous Doctor. " One more question. 
Will you be kind enough to inform us whether 
you can explain the philosophy of any kind 
of disease whatever — the simplest thing you 
can think of — say a slight headache V s 

Lecturer. "I have to confess that I can- 
not." 

Famous Doctor. "Well, that's all T want 
to know. Now I will take my family and go 
home; and I advise my friends and neighbors 
to go home too, and read the story of the babes 
in the wood; they will find that a good deal 
more scientific and instructive than this lec- 
ture." 

That world-renowned manufacturer of a 
medicine "which, by cleansing the blood of all 
impurities, eradicates every vestige of disi 
from the entire organism," grandly rose and 
bolted. 

I went on to make a clean breast of it to 
such of the audience a> chose to remain, 
a very considerable number bolted with the 
manufacturer. 

Lecturer. Friends, the doctor did not half 
sound the depths of my ignorance. T not only 
do not understand the nature or philosophy 



i 



OUR IGNORANCE OF THE VITAL FORCE. 85 

of any disease whatever, but I really know 
nothing of the nature of the vital principle 
in its simple or natural manifestations, saying 
nothing of it when it is complicated by disease. 
But worse than this, I know nothing of the 
philosophy of health or disease in a blade of 
grass, nor even in one little cell in that blade 
of grass. I must confess, for myself, that I have 
always been sitting before the curtain. Never 
have I been permitted a single peep behind 
it into that secret green-room where Nature 
manipulates the ropes, wires, and springs which 
she employs in producing the great drama of 
life. This strange, arrogant determination to 
know ally in physiology, has proved a fatal ob- 
stacle to progress in these studies. 

He who will humbly sit at the feet of 
nature may learn all that it is important he 
should know. The good Father has hidden 
nothing beyond our finding which is essential 
to our welfare and happiness. But life, which 
is probably identical with God himself, is not 
for our mortal ken. 

We return to the subject under discussion. 
While no mortal will ever comprehend the 
vital force, while the philosophy of digestion 
must, in its essence, remain among the hidden 
tilings, all that need be known about the con- 
ditions on which this pivotal function of our 



86 QUE DIGESTION. 

earthly life may be maintained at its highest 
is quite within reach of the earnest inquirer. 



Another Famous Doctor. 

This great "Blood Purifier " reminds me of 
a famous Thompsonian doctor from whom I 
heard a lecture in this city thirty years ago. 
A number of us — students in the medical de- 
partment of Harvard — hearing that the Thomp- 
sonian system was to he elucidated by a very 
distinguished representative of the school, at- 
tended, and we heard, among many wonderful 
things, something like the following: 

"And, now, do y^u know how marcury pro- 
duces rheumatiz? I will tell you exactly how 
marcury produces rheumatiz. Y<>u Bee, mar- 
cury has a great many sharp pints, and them 
sharp pints git stuck in the flesh, and when the 
muscles rub over them sharp pints, it 
and that is the rheumatiz !" 

And when he came to lobelia, he astonished 
us with bursts of eloquence. Among many 
tremendous hits, I remember this erne : 

"Ladies and gentlemen, I have studied 
lobely ! I have spent years in studyin' how it 
operates on the system ; I have sot up all night 
more than a thousand times, reflectm 1 on it. 
And now I will tell you how it is lobely works 



ANOTHER FAMOUS DOCTOR. 87 

on the system. The first dose stirs up the 
morbid anatomy, the second dose scrapes up the 
morbid anatomy, and the third dose heaves out 
the morbid anatomy. Ladies and gentlemen, 
that's the way that lobely does it. Ladies and 
gentlemen, I stand here to declare, let no man 
undertake to treat disease till he has made the 
whole system, in all its secret recesses, the sub- 
ject of day and night study for a life-time, and 
that's just what I have done. When I meet a 
case, I just set right down and take the case 
right into my mind, and there I hold it till I 
see all through it, ef it takes me a month ; I 
have frequently had a hard case on my mind 
more'n six months before I could see through 
it in all its pints." 

These are the doctors that see through the 
whole thing in all its " pints." Let us stop 
putting on airs and frankly acknowledge that 
not only are we utterly ignorant of the life 
principle, but that the essence of every force is 
absolutely hidden from us. 

Look at this simple pebble. What holds it 
together? Why does it not fall to pieces? 
Why, you say, that is attraction of cohesion, 
to be sure ! Yes, but what is attraction of 
cohesion ? 

Not only is life in the vegetable or animal, 
whether in health or disease, an inscrutable 



88 



OUR DIGESTION. 



mystery to us, but the laws which preside over 
inorganic matter are likewise entirely out of 
our reach. 

Let us modestly study such facts and make 
such deductions as come within the range of our 
capacity, and leave it to such distinguished and 
magnificent greatness as the above to dive into 
the profoundest depths of the mysteries of the 
Creator, to fully comprehend the most k ' secret 
pints." 



SUNSHINE AND DIGESTION 89 



SUNSHINE AND DIGESTION, 



Very intimate relations exist between the 
sun and digestion. Digestion and assimilation 
become weak and imperfect if the man or ani- 
mal is not freely exposed to the direct rays of 
the sun. 

Mr. P., one of our merchants, came to see 
me about his stomach. Dyspepsia was written 
all over his face, was shown in his movements 
and hoard in his voice. The conversation be- 
tween us was essentially the following : 

Mr. P. " Doctor, if you will excuse a street 
vulgarity, I am ' played out/ I can't digest, I 
can't work, I have lost my courage, I fear I 
must stop." 

"Tell me about your diet?" 

" If you will excuse me, I know that is all 
right. I have studied the subject, and I know 
my food is all right." 

" How about your exercise ?" 

" I have a little gymnasium in my store, and 
exercise an hour every day. I sometimes tire 
myself out with these exercises." 

" How about your sleep ?" 

" Why, doctor, I go to bed every night with 



90 OUE DIGESTION. 

the chickens. At any rate, I am. always in bed 
by nine o'clock, and I rise by six o'clock in the 
morning, take a bath, a plain breakfast, and go 
to my counting-room. Once in the forenoon 
and once in the afternoon I exercise in my 
gymnasium half an hour or so, but I am getting 
worse and worse all the time. Isn't it carious? 
My wife thinks I must have a cancer in the 
stomach. Nothing seems to help me. I live 
the most physiological life, but my digestion 
grows worse and worse. ,; 

"About your counting-room ; is that light? 
is it sunny ?" 

"No, that 18 one nuisance we have. The 

store is every way pleasant, only thai the 

counting-room is BO dark that we have to 
gas nearly all the time." 

" That's it, Mr. P., that explains your 
cancer.* 

"Of course you don't mean that : hut T sop- 
pose it would be hotter if the counting-room 
was sunny." 

"Mr. P., no plant or animal can digest in 
the dark. Try it. Plant a potato in your cel- 
lar, Now watch it carefully. If there is a 
little light, that potato will sprout and try to 
grow. Put surround it with the host manure, 
water it, do the best for it, only you shall k. 
it in the dark, it cannot digest and grow. B 






SUNSHINE AND DIGESTION. 91 

how slender and pale it is. Now open a win- 
dow in another part of the cellar, and notice how 
the poor hungry thing will stretch that way. 
Or give the stalk a little twist and see how it 
will lie down. It can't raise itself again. No 
matter how much food and drink you give it, 
it can't digest. The process of digestion, the 
great function of assimilation, can't go on with- 
out sunshine. Why, sir, with your excellent 
habits, if your counting-room were in a flood 
of sunlight, you would be better in a week, and 
well in a month. 

" Mr. P., did you ever go into the country 
late in the summer? Well, did you ever notice 
where grain is growing in an orchard, that the 
part under the trees is smaller than that out- 
side and away from the trees? And yet the 
land is actually richer there. For years the 
leaves have fallen and decayed under the trees, 
but notwithstanding this, the wheat is only half 
size and never fills well. Now what is the 
difficulty ? The sun shines upon it more or 
less, but that under the trees does not receive 
as much sunshine as that away from them. 
That which is partly in the shade can't digest 
so well. 

" Why, sir, if you will move your counting- 
room up stairs, in front, and stand where the 
sun can have a fair chance at you, even though 



92 OUR DIGESTIOX. 

it is only three or four hours a day, you will 
begin to digest your beef better within three 
days. 

" Have you never noticed that the only grapes 
that become perfectly ripe and sweet, that the 
only peaches that take on those beautiful red 
cheeks and offer that Luscious sweetness, are 
those that are on the outside, entirely uncov- 
ered by the leaves and perfectly exposed to the 
sun? God's laws are the same in the animal 
world. It is just as true that the only girls 
with red cheeks and sweet breaths, the only 
girls who become ftdlyripe and sweet, are tb 
who baptize themselves freely in God's glorious 
sunshine. 

"Don't you sec a good many pale girls in 
your store, girls with a bloodless, half-ba] 
sort of face, whose walk, whose voice, wh 
whole expression is devoid of spirit and for 
Those girls are in the green state. Lock at 
their lips and cheeks: they are not half ripe. 
Send them out in the country, let them throw 
away their parasols, put on their little jock 
hats and live out in the sunshine three monl 
and I would give more for one ot^ them in any 
work requiring soul and spirit than for a dozen 
of those pale things that live in the shade. A 
pale woman! She makes a very good gh 
hut not much o^ a woman." 



SLEEP AND DIGESTION. 93 

Sleep and Digestion. 

" From eating conies sleep, from sleep diges- 
tion." — Sanctorius. 

" Sleep is the mother of digestion." — Blun- 
deville. 

" Nothing more contributes to digestion than 
sleep." — Barry. 

" The brute creation invariably lie down and 
enjoy a state of rest the moment their stomachs 
are filled. People who are feeble digest their 
dinner best if they lie down and sleep as most 
animals do when their stomachs are full." — 
Darwin. 

Dr. Harwood fed two dogs. Then one slept 
and the other ran. In two hours both were 
killed. The one which had slept had completely 
digested his food ; in the stomach of the other 
the process of digestion had hardly begun. 

" Quiet of body and mind for two hours 
after dinner is certainly useful to the studious, 
the delicate and the invalid." — Adair. 

"After dinner rest for three hours." — Aber- 
nethy. 

" After dinner sit awhile." — English Proverb. 

"Always rest after a meal, and do not dis- 
turb the mind with thinking." — Celsus. 

" If you have a strong propensity to sleep 
after dinner, indulge it ; the process of diges- 



9i OUR DIGESTION, 

tion goes on much better during sleep. I have 
always found an irresistible propensity to it 
whenever dyspeptic symptoms were consider- 
able."— Wfer. 

"Aged men and vreake bodies, a Bhort s] 
after dinner doth belp to nourish." — Bacon. 

Chambers says: u We should indulge in the 
muscular and mental repose which is demanded, 
and this should las! for not much less than an 

hour after each meal." 

The same acute observer says, in discuss 
this subject of resl in it- relations to dig 
that a >h<Tt period of i , or at least very 
light occupation, should be allowed bel 
every meal. 

In my own personal experience, I have al- 
ways observed that an hour or an h<>ur and a 
half of rest before dinner contributes mon 
the completeness of digestion than the same 
rot immediately after eating. 

It is very important, a- remarked in another 
place, that the time given t<» the meal itself 
should be ample. Every minute saved to bus- 
iness by hurrying the eating is an u tent 
which, instead i^ paying a profit, involves a 
loss. If possible, be talkative and BOCiaL 



CORSETS AND DIGESTION. 95 



CORSETS AND DIGESTION. 



One of the essential forces in digestion is a 
certain motion of the stomach and intestines, 
known as the vermicular or worm-like motion. 
The contents of the stomach during digestion 
must be constantly mixed and intermixed. 
The motion of the stomach accomplishes this 
mixing and intermixing. 

Please go with me to the House to 

dinner to-day, 

Well, here we are. I want you to watch 
the ladies as they come in. I can't bear to 
hear men criticise ladies, but we will venture a 
little comment in a low voice, and we won't let 
them see that we are looking at them. 

Do you see that slight, pale lady with the 
little girl? She is the wife of Mr. II. , our 
wealthy broker. She is in wretched health. 
Look at her waist ! What do you think of 
the chances of the vermicular motion in her 
stomach? It wouldn't take very long hands 
to clasp round that waist. And within that 
space, not only must the stomach work, but the 
liver, spleen, pancreas, transverse colon, several 
feet of the small intestines, and many large 



96 OUR DIGESTION. 

arteries, veins and other organs must all find 
room to work. What a doubled and twisted 
hotch-potch ! 

Look at that large red-faced woman leaning 
on the arm of that little man. What immei 
shoulders and hips! But just notice her waist 

Do you know that women have naturally 
larger waists in proportion to their shoulders 
than men? Look on the first page of any ana- 
tomical work and you will see. Look at the 
Greek Slave by Powers. Compare that with 
any of the groat master-pieces representing the 
male 4 figure, and yon will see that the female has 
a larger waist in proportion to the should 
than the male. 

That lady weighs over two hundred pounds, 
while her waist is smaller than her hus- 
band's, and be weighs not more than i 
hundred and fifty pounds. Her stem 
after dinner is, or should be, pretty large; her 
liver is an immense organ; then all the other 
organs which I have mentioned must find a 
place in there somewhere. And now, how do 
you suppose they manage it ? Well, they get 
doubled up and twisted about in a very remark- 
able way, and a very large part oi the mass 
jammed down into the lower part of the ab- 
domen. When she rises, it' you Will look at 
her person you will observe that the lower 



CORSETS AND DIGESTION. 97 

part of the abdomen is immensely protuberant. 
Half of all which belongs in that part of the 
upper abdomen where the corset has compelled 
that deep scoop-shovel hollow has been pressed 
down into the lower abdomen. 

Let us watch this large woman a little 
while she eats. Soup, salmon, beef, canvas- 
back and plum pudding, with all the fixings, 
and two glasses of sherry ! What do you think 
of that for her poor squeezed-up stomach ? 

Now we will go. Have you seen one in 
this large company of ladies who gives her 
stomach a fair chance for the vermicular mo- 
tion? 

And they can't understand this miserable, 
dragging, faint feeling in the stomach, and that 
other distressing sensation of pressing down in 
the lower part of the abdomen. 

You might just as well expect the arm or 
leg to work without room, as the stomach. If 
the stomach could speak for itself, I fancy it 
would say : 

" What do you take me for ? Do you think 
I can digest soup, fish, meat, game, pudding, 
pie, ice-cream, etc., and, at the same time, be 
squeezed with those infernal whalebones laced 
down all around me with that strong cord? 
What do you think I am ? Do you take me 
for a mule or a jackass ? My mistress, suppose 



98 OUR DIGESTION. 

your arms and legs were all tied with strong 
cords, and then the cruel torturer were to com- 
mand you to rise and toil ! What would you 
think of it? Well, that is just what I think 
of your tying me down and then commanding 
me to work." 



NECESSITY OF ACIDS IN DIGESTION 99 



NECESSITY OP ACIDS IN DIGESTION. 



If men live too long without fresh meat and 
vegetables, the malady known as scurvy appears. 
There is in this case a morbid state of the sys- 
tem requiring acids. Lemon juice, or vege- 
tables containing certain acids, afford speedy 
relief. In our artificial life extra acids are 
frequently needed in digestion. By a sort of 
instinct we use vinegar upon certain articles 
of food. It is with pork and beans, lettuce, 
cucumbers, salads, salmon, and other articles of 
difficult digestion that we use vinegar. Even 
the Dutchman's abominable sauer-kraut is easy 
of digestion with its abounding acid. 

A few years ago a medical brother brought 
to my notice a singular case of indigestion. 
The woman suffered from eructations to a most 
distressing degree. The eructations began a 
little after each meal, and continued often three 
hours. The bowels were disturbed with inces- 
sant rumbling. The rapidity with which this 
gas was secreted surprised me. 

Upon a careful inquiry into her habits, I 
learned that she consumed daily large quan- 
tities of saccharine matter. She ate sugar or 



100 OUR DIGESTION. 

syrup on or in everything. I directed that she 
should eat for breakfast and dinner all she 
might want of boiled beef or mutton, with un- 
fermented bread, no sweets, and no drink but 
cold water in very small quantity. No supper. 

At the close of breakfast and dinner, she was 
to suck the juice of a lemon. 

The patient had been suffering for several 
years. In a few weeks she was well; and, by 
avoiding sweets and using lemon juice daily , 
has continued to enjoy good digestion. There 
is hardly a day passes that 1 have not the priv- 
ilege of relieving some sufferer from dyspepsia 
by advising avoidance of all sweet things and a 
moderate use of adds. 

During the last twenty years T have been in 
the habit of saying that no family of five ] 
sons should use more than a pound of sugar a 
week. The importance of this rule is every 
year growing upon me. I have a clear convic- 
tion that much of our indigestion would dis- 
appear upon the banishment of sugar and mo- 
lasses from our grocery bills. The longing for 
acids so common among our dyspeptics is the 
language of a real organic want. 



TABLE FURNITURE. 101 



HELPS TO DIGESTION. 



Ouk manners at the table have much to do 
with our digestion. Politeness must be set 
down among the means of a healthy stomach. 

In the first place, if we offer the bread, the 
butter, and the sauce, to others, we interrupt the 
otherwise unbroken shoveling-in business, and 
thus make the eating more deliberate, which is 
an advantage ; and in the second place, the 
temper induced by this mutual kindness is emi- 
nently favorable to the stomach functions. A 
kind action always tends toward health ; an un- 
kind or mean one tends in the opposite direc- 
tion. This is a general law, and especially 
applicable to table manners. 

Table Furniture. 

In view of the fact that as a people we have 
rather weak stomachs, everything which tends 
to a sense of comfort and pleasure at the table 
should be fostered. Among the sources of 
good feeling, I reckon good crockery, plate, 
cutlery and linen. 

China costs but little more than the common 

9* 



102 OJJB DIGESTION. 

ware, and is likely to receive better care and to 
last longer. 

Plated knives, forks and spoons are now so 
cheap that every table may have an abundance. 
On some accounts plated ware is preferable to 
solid silver. When the Millennium comes in, I 
shall prefer the solid ware, but up to the dawn 
of that happy day, I shall listen with sincere 
respect to the prayer of light-fingered people, 
" Lead us not into temptation." 

Nice linen gives such pleasure to everybody 
that I shall not attempt a plea for clean table- 
cloths and napkins. 

I should be satisfied with plainer and cheaper 
food, if neatly prepared and served upon snowy 
linen, with china and plate. I have no doubt 
there are people who, like blind men, only re- 
gard the taste of the food, and, like pigs, have 
no choice about the trough in which it is 
served ; but most of us are filled with a sense of 
satisfaction when surrounded by these clean, 
bright things. 

I cannot mention a table economy more wise 
than the use of beautiful crockery and linen. 
It induces good manners, quiet, deliberate eat- 
ing, and other Christian decencies. And it 
makes food look so palatable that the pur- 
chases and labor of cooking may be sensibly 
reduced. 



FLO WEES AT TABLE. 103 

An intelligent lady assured me that the sight 
of cracked wheat always turned her stomach, 
until she was visiting at Mrs. R.'s, when the 
wheat looked so white, the china dish in which 
it was put on the table was so beautiful, the 
fringed napkin and cream pitcher were so 
pretty, that she ate cracked wheat for the first 
time, and has ever since been fond of it. Very 
plain things can be made appetizing by a pleas- 
ant dress. 

How true all this is of many things besides 
our food ! I know more than one man, and 
more than one woman, without intelligence, 
Christian sentiments or manners, who are tol- 
erated and even welcomed on account of their 
fine taste in dress. And is it not true that the 
mass of men regard the dress and manners 
more than the quality of soul within ? It is 
the dish and the linen which decide the fate of 
more than one thing. 



Flowers at Table. 

Their beauty and fragrance add not a little 
to the pleasure of the table hour. A large, 
fragrant bouquet takes the place of an extra 
dish. And nothing is so cheap as flowers. 
During a considerable part of the year they 
cost absolutely nothing. It is the sweetest 



104 OUR DIGESTION. 

pleasure to grow tliem. And it is surprising 
how cheaply a small conservatory may be 
managed. 

It is such a pleasure to observe how the love 
for flowers is increasing ! This winter one may 
see in Boston more flowers in a week than ten 
years ago he would have seen in three months. 
Their sweet beauty brightens the most unex- 
pected places, while their presence inspires 
almost every pulpit. 

As I write these 1 word-. Boston is welcoming 
His Imperial Highness, the Grand Duke 
Alexis, of Russia, with flowers and the - 
of children. Every hall, hotel and chamber 
where he is received is fragrant with flow< 
more beautiful than the diamond crown of his 
father. Twenty years ago it would have b 
cannon and a series of gormandic surfeits. 

The service of flowers at the table, in recall- 
ing the lost appetite of the invalid, has 1 
been recognized. Their service in refining the 
appetites of all is not generally appreciated. It 
would take a brute to eat like one. at a table 
made sweet by the presence of flow* 



Music at the Table. 

Some of my readers, when they see tl. 
ing of this chapter, will exclaim, 



THE TABLE AND THE CHAIBS. 105 

" Now this is too much ; this is carrying it 
too far. When I sit down to eat, what I want 
is steak, sausage, slapjacks and coffee! You 
may smell of your flowers and listen to your 
music ; I'll take something to eat." 

There are people who care nothing for 
flowers or music or clean linen, beautiful 
crockery or politeness. What they want is 
slapjacks and ham. Of course, what I am say- 
ing of these things will be all Greek to such. 
But I will venture to suggest that the occa- 
sional introduction of music during meal time 
will prove most acceptable. Some of the mu- 
sic-boxes are very sweet, and if several were 
owned in a neighborhood, by an occasional ex- 
change a variety of pleasing music would be 
secured. TKe iEolian harp, which can be made 
without expense by any ingenious boy, will, 
when placed in an open window, if the air be 
moving, discourse the sweetest music in the 
world. And as we progress, the piano, harp, 
violin and other instruments will be made to 
serve us now and then on these occasions. 



The Table and the Chairs. 

A word or two about the table and chairs. 
The table must be large enough to accommo- 
date the dishes without crowding. It is trjie 



106 OUR DIGESTION. 

of the furniture of a table as it is of the furni- 
ture of a room, that a confused crowd offends. 

The chairs should be high enough to bring as 
well above our plates. The high chair occupied 
by the carver gives him a certain advantage. 

Conversation at the Table. 

A cheerful temper charms the stomach. 
Pleasant, social companions will help u> to 
digest what might otherwise prove unmanage- 
able. An Englishman, without observing the 
laws of exercise or sleep, will digest an enor- 
mous dinner and preserve his stomach. It us 
his two hours of chat and Uowship. 

Let him eat the same quantity in the rapid 
restaurant fashion, sitting alone, and he would 
soon be a wretched dyspeptic. 

The influence of a quiet, social temper upon 
the stomach is one of the curious facte about 
digestion. 

A Lawyer's Experience. 

A lawyer in this city told me that he had 
been for some time in the habit of eating at 
our best cafe, and found it difficult to explain 
the full stomach and dull head which almost 
uniformly followed even a very moderate din- 
ner. This unpleasant experience had gone on 
for some months, when a jolly legal friend called 



STRIKING EXPERIENCE OF A MERCHANT. 107 

to see him, and, business over, they dined to- 
gether. 

The dinner lasted an hour and a half. They 
ate many indigestible things, and three or four 
times the quantity he usually took at his soli- 
tary lunch. Strange to say, there was no sense 
of fullness or headache. 

This circumstance set him thinking, and 
ever since, at considerable inconvenience to 
himself, he has dined with his family, taking 
great pains to foster the social spirit during 
their meals. 



Striking Experience of a Merchant. 

The influence of disappointment and grief 
upon the function of digestion has long been 
observed. The news of some business calam- 
ity, or death of a friend, has turned an eager 
appetite into loathing. 

Mr. W., a shipping merchant of this city, 
had an experience which strikingly illustrates 
this physiological sympathy between brain and 
stomach. 

One of his vessels with a very valuable cargo 
sailed from Hong Kong, and was due in Boston 
about the 1st of May. 

As he owned something more than a score 
of vessels, he resolved, in view of a sudden 



108 OUR DIGESTION. 

rise in the rates of insurance during the late 
war, to insure his own vessel and cargo, saving 
thereby, if the vessel came home in safety, 
about twenty thousand dollar.-. 

May came ; the " May Queen M did not arrive. 
June came in, but the vessel did not The first 
of July brought no news of the " Quden." On 
the fourth of July, while driving in the coun- 
try, I called at the merchant'.- residence and 
was told that he was in the garden. I found 
him, and was astonished at his sallow, despair- 
ing fare. The good wife joined as, and de- 
clared that Mr. \\\ had eaten nothing for a 
fortnight. I was really anxious about him, and 

three days after, calling at his office, I found 

him down on the v\u\ of the wharf. He 

SO absorbed and overwhelmed that he did not 

notice me until I .-poke. 

He talked of nothing hut the k * May Qu< 
and really looked like a man becoming in- 
sane. 

While walking with him, new- came. The 
clerk ran toward us crying out, "She is comi 
she is coming, sirl" 

Six hours after, the captain of the " May 
Queen " stepped ashore and reported all safe, 

Mr. W- took him to a hotel, and, as he after- 
ward phrased it, made up for all his table 
losses. 



ANOTHER VIEW OF .THE SAME CASE. 109 

In such a case as this, and it is not a rare 
one, except perhaps in intensity, it is really 
difficult to comprehend this perfect subjection 
of a mere physical function to the domination 
of the mind. 

. But what I wish to urge is the great import- 
ance of social enjoyment during meal time. 
Blessed are the story tellers, for they help us 
to digest our dinners ! 

A good story teller, if his stories are clean, 
is a God-send. His best services are rendered 
at the table. Those of us who cannot tell a 
good story can bring to the table the funny 
papers. Read now and then a good thing — it 
is sure to suggest something. A good anecdote 
is a capital condiment. 

Our restaurant plan of eating has its advan- 
tages. "We are not so likely to take a great 
variety of dishes, nor are we so likely to eat 
too much. When we enjoy the participation 
of pleasant friends at the restaurant-table, it is 
on the whole a great gain on the table d'hote 
with its elaborate courses. 



Another View of the Same Picture. 

American men are hard workers. They see 

their wives and children but little except at 

table. That seems to be about the only family 

10 



110 QUE DIGESTION. 

gathering. What a spectacle is the common 
management of these family meetings ! 

The father sits in glum silence, and shovels 
in as fast as he can swallow. The children 
follow the parental example. The food ta 
passed only when asked for, and is then 
in silence. There Ls nothing human about it. 
I can't see in what essential particular it difl 
from a group of pigs gathered about a trough. 

If these gatherings were wisely managed; if 
the experiences of the children in their sch< 
were lovingly called out by parental inter 
if such news as the parents had picked up w 
the last meeting were told, — if this were the 
scene at the table three times a day, it would 
grow by what it feeds mi. The table meetu 
would be most attractive to the -mall people. 
The parents would grow into a L 
with their children. It would in truth pn 
the greatest Messing to every member of the 
group, and in the long run would contribute 
more to the physical, intellectual, social and 
moral development of the young people than 
any other agency I can name. 

John Smith's Method. 

John Smith, a blacksmith residing in a New 
England village, has a wife and several chil- 



JOHN SMITH'S METHOD. Ill 

dren. I had the pleasure to remain two days 
in this family, and if I could tell you what I 
saw and heard at their table, I am sure I 
should deeply interest eyery reader. But so 
much of what was most delightful appeared in 
their faces and the tones of their voices, that it 
is impossible to give anything like a just re- 
port. 

John and his wife are illiterate, but the first 
meal I ate with them proved them no common 
people. 

Father. " Johnny, now tell us all about 
your school this morning; about your lessons 
and everything that happened." 

Johnny proceeded with a long story about 
his lessons, what this boy had said and that 
girl had said, what the teacher had said, how 
many numbers he had gone up in the spelling, 
and then with a good deal of embarrassment he 
told how he had missed eight times nine. 

Father. "Why, Johnny, that's the same 
mistake you made the other day !" 

Johnny. " I know it, father, but somehow 
I can't remember the plaguy thing." 

The little girl, a toddler of four years, cried 
out, " Papa, when I go to school I will learn 
everything, and won't never miss. I know how 
how much eight times nine is now !" 

Mother. " Well, Nettie, how much is it ?" 



112 OUR DIGESTION. 

Nettie. " It's thirteen." 

Johnny. " Oh, Nettie, that ain't right; it's 
seventy-two." 

Then the father related what Deacon i>.. who 
had been two hours at the shop waiting \'<>r his 
horses to be shod, had said aboul the fashion 
check-reins. 

'"The Deacon Bays be thinks 'thai ch< 
reins arc the cruel things iii the world.' 

He fixed a strap and checked up his Charley, 
and asked us to watch him. Well, i must 
I never had thought so much about it bef 
but in a moment the horse l>< 
head, and then turned it from aide to side. Then 
the Deacon checked him closer, bul doI a bit 
closer than those dandified folks ch( 
It was really curious to see how that h 
acted. lie threw his nose up a- high a-- lie 
could a dozen times, trying to free his h 
then he would turn his head just as far as he 
could, tirst one side and then the other. The 
Deacon said that Ids neck ached just like 
toothache. He thinks that a pain in the n 
is the worst pain any creature can suffer. Tie 
asked ns to look at his eyes and see how he 
suffering. The Deacon says 1 that's the w 
thing Ave ever do to horses. That if a horse 
could speak, he would tell ns he would rather 
be cut twenty times with a whip than have 



JOHN SMITH'S METHOD. 113 

his neck aclie that way for half an hour/ 
When the check was taken off, the horse held 
his head down very low, and seemed to be rest- 
ins; his neck. 

" I do think, as the Deacon says, ' that the 
check is a cruel thing.' " 

Johnny. "Til never check up a horse as 
long as I live and breathe and draw a breath 
of life." 

Margaret " But, mother, I think that the 
way people treat their dogs is worse than that." 

Mother. "Why, Maggie, what do you 
mean ?" 

Margaret. " What I mean is this : Dogs 
need a great deal of water, and they need it 
very often. And I don't know hardly any- 
body that fixes any place for them to drink. 
All the summer long, when dogs want drink 
every little while, they have to go from morn- 
ing till night, unless they happen to find some 
water. The way they suffer is awful. I say 
that people that have dogs ought either to kill 
them, or else fix some place where they can 
drink as often as they please." 

Johnny. "I won't never treat my dog so 
as long as I live and breathe and draw a breath 
of life> 

3fother. " But I don't think either of those 

things is half as cruel as shooting birds. I 

10* 



114 



OUR DIGEST LOS. 



can't bear to think how that cruel boy of 
Jenks's shot the robins that had a uest in 
tree. It was bo cruel. I know just how it all 
happened; I saw him when In- Bhot them. It 
was nearly dark, and the father and mother 
birds were out getting supper for their li: 
children. They both Bat od the fence just 
there at the corner when he shot them. ( l 
of them fell at once, and the other flew back 
as fast as it could go to the nest I ran out 

there and found the mother bird all bloody and 

gasping. I brought ber into the a and 

put her down by the si ied to wash 

off the blood, hut in a E 
Long gasp and died. 

44 I went out at once to * 6 how the little 

father bird got along, and was astonished to 
find that he was wounded and lying on the 
ground. I saw there was blood on the limb 

near the nest, and bo 1 kn< iiad been tip 

there, hut had not strength enough to hold on. 

"I just came away and watched him. He 
tried three or four times to fly up to the D 
before he got there. At last he hit tie 
of the nest and fell in. 1 couldn't do any- 
thing, and so I let him alone. 

k¥ The next morning 1 went out early, and 
everything was still about the nest Bo I got a 
ladder and climbed up there to see. And th< 



JOHN SMITH'S METHOD. 115 

I found the father bird dead, lying on the little 
ones, and they were all soaked in blood. 

" I took out the father, and only one of the 
little birds was alive. I brought. that in and 
tried to feed it, but it soon died. All this grief 
and trouble came just because that cruel boy 
wanted to shoot his gun. And just think, he 
brags that he has killed twenty robins in a day !" 

Johnny. " I'll never shoot a bird as long as 
I live and breathe and draw a breath of life." 

At the conclusion of an hour at that table, 
I said, " Mr. Smith, do you always remain as 
long as this at the dinner table ?" 

" Yes," he replied ; " I always will have my 
hour at dinner and supper. I tell you, it's 
about the only comfort I get. And then I 
always tell 'em, if people will have children, 
they must sorter help 'em along ; kinder get 
their heads and hearts goin' right, you know." 

If I could give a faithful report of all that 
was said by parents and children, with the 
manner and spirit in which the conversations 
were carried on, I should write one of the most 
interesting chapters ever published. Of all 
schools for children, this is the best. 

Generally the conversations were of a cheer- 
ful character, with a good deal of fun, but at 
two meals the rights of animals were consid- 
ered, and in a manner which illustrates what I 



116 OUR DIGESTION. 

have long held as true — viz. : that the Ameri- 
can mechanic knows more of law than the law- 
yer, more of medicine than the doctor, d 
religion than the professional theologian, and, 
I might add, more of the rights of animals 
than one of the Lecturers of the "S for 

the Prevention of Cruelty to Animal-." 



A Word in Conclusion. 

What I have been urging in I to the 

table involve no self-denial, bul adds at oi 
and largely to our pleasure s, 

Eating, with its ac< 
contribute immensely to th< 
ments. Of the legitimate and healthful e 
we have quite too ft w, as thii ..■■. A 

change from our unsocial, piggish 
order, beauty , deliberation and s ility Ihi 
suggested, would increase tenfold our fa 
pleasures, and add indefinitely to our health. 
And this would all come, not with 
a millionaire and at the end of tw< but 

in the cottage of the poor man and to-day. 

This is one of a hundred illustratioi - 
great natural law — to wit : that all on 
blessings are within the reach of all i 
people, with very little regard to th< 
or school training. 



BEG UL ABIT Y IN EATING. 117 



REGULARITY IN EATING. 



If there is one rule about eating in which 
all persons are agreed, it is, that our meals 
should be taken at stated and regular periods. 
People may differ about vegetarianism, about 
sweets, about pies and cakes, about tea and 
coffee; but I have never met a person who 
would insist that regularity was of no conse- 
quence — that it was just as well to take two 
meals to-day and five to-morrow, to take din- 
ner at one o'clock to-day, three to-morrow, and 
five next day. Without understanding the 
physiological law, all are agreed that regular- 
ity is important. 

A long journey by rail does not derange the 
stomach because of long sitting in an unventi- 
lated car, for the traveler may occupy a still 
worse place in the pursuit of his business at 
home ; neither is it because of the character of 
the food furnished at the railway lunch rooms, 
for the food at home is often worse ; but the 
stomach derangement which nearly always 
comes with the long railway trip is, in great 
part, to be traced to irregularity in the times 
of eating. In a recent trip, we took breakfast 



118 OUR DIGESTION. 

the first morning just after daylight, m 
morning at half-past nine o'clock, the I 
seven, and bo with the other meals; only i 
day we had no dinner at all. In less than a 
week we were all suffering indigestion; some 
were conscious of no discomfort in the stomach! 
but not one of us escaped the dullness and de- 
pression of spirits which of im] 
digestion. Among the table laws, this one 
of regularity is pre-eminently important 



Queer Feeding of Babies. 

How strangely oblivious of this vital law 
mothers arc with reference to the feeding i E 
their babies during the nursing 1 ! If the 

baby worries, the mother puts it to her 
If it cries from hunger, she gives the same 
remedy; and if it cries from colic produced by 
a surfeit, the same remedy is employed. If it 
cries because a pin stick- in its back, the D - 
ther says, " Give it to me ! give it to me I give 
it to me!" and its bawling mouth is filL <L 

A child cries from lying too long in one | 
tion, from tight clothing, from heat, from c 
from fifty causes, and the mother treats every 
cry with one remedy — a dose of milk. The 
little sufferer, in its unreasoning eagerness 
relief, goes on sucking every time. For a few 



HOW OFTEN SHALL BABIES BE FED? 119 

moments the new sensation relieves the old one ; 
besides, there is a universal instinct to do some- 
thing when we are in pain, and as the baby has 
learned to do but one thing, it will contrive to 
do this one thing on all occasions, no matter 
though its stomach is already so full that on 
adding a single spoonful it must run over. 



How often shall Babies be fed? 

If you would preserve your baby in health, 
give it nourishment with perfect regularity as 
to time. How often ? you will ask. During 
my professional experience I have tried to ar- 
rive at an answer to that very reasonable and 
practical question. My best judgment is, that 
vl\) to six months of age a baby should nurse 
once in three hours, and after that, until it is 
weaned, once in four hours. A baby should 
have nothing during the night. If denied for 
a week, it will almost invariably sleep all night; 
but if, when it worries, the usual stuffing is 
thrust into its open mouth, you have begun 
the most ingenious of all expedients to make 
it troublesome at night. In many hundred 
babies whose nocturnal restlessness has been 
brought to my notice, I have advised abstinence 
during the night ; and when managed with a 
little patience, the result has always been most 



120 OUR DIGESTION. 

satisfactory to all concerned. Many old nur 
who have pooh-poohed at " this new-fangled 
notion of a doctor who don't know nothin' 
about it; how many children has he nursed, I 
wonder?" — many such, upon seeing this plan 
of raising children tried, have become its 
warmest advocates. I recall one old, obstinate 
Irish nurse, who used, at first, on entering the 
service of some of my patients, y, thai she 
didn't believe babies were such fools that t : 
didn't know when they were hungry. 8 
gave me a great deal of trouble for a whi 
but when a sensible mother adopted the in: - 
vals of three hours during the day, and total 
abstinence during the night, the baby became 
so very quiet, and gave Margaret ao good a 
chance to sleep, her interest was aroused, and 
at length she was converted, and every baby 
was the "best baby that ever lived, Mesa its 
little heart !" 

Bottle-fed Babies. 

While on this point. 1 must say Bometb 
of the diet of bottle-fed babies. Milk is the 
only article which will alone permanently sus- 
tain human lite. It is the only one which con- 
tains all the elements found in the animal body. 
There is no doubt that milk is the pr 
for infants. The hundred and one sub-tin; 



BOTTLE-FED BABIES. 121 

which are sold at the drug stores and groceries 
(of which preparations of arrowroot are good 
samples) are but poor, unnutritious, unsatisfac- 
tory stuffs. 

Babies must have milk. But it disagrees 
with them, they vomit it, and suffer from fever 
and diarrhoea. In other words, they can't di- 
gest milk. This common difficulty is what I 
want to explain. I have seen a good many 
bottle-fed babies sicken and die on a milk diet, 
and where the diet was clearly the cause of the 
sickness. But I have never seen a case in 
which it was not possible to manage milk so 
that when the little one could take nourishment 
at all, this was not the best for it. 

The child's organism is adapted to milk with 
a very small percentage of oil or butter, viz., 
its own mother's. When the mother from any 
reason is unable to furnish the child its own 
natural and proper nourishment, the little one 
is fed on cow's milk, which contains five times 
as much oil or butter. It generally vomits a 
large part of it, but even the part retained is 
too rich for its little ^weak stomach. This oily 
richness of cow's milk is the common difficulty 
among bottle-fed children. 

What is the remedy ? Is it to abandon milk, 

and feed the babe upon some such stuff as 

arrowroot ? Certainly not ! The best manage- 

11 



122 OUR DIGESTION. 

ment, generally speaking, is simply to dilute 
the milk with pure soft water. The degree of 
dilution must be determined in each case by 
experiment. Try, first, the addition of a quan- 
tity of water equal to the milk. It is quite 
rare that the proportion of water should be I 
than this. Frequently, the quantity should be 
three or four times as greal as the quantity of 
milk. And if the little one still vomits 
instead of milk at every feeding, once or twi 
a day, buttermilk. This is particularly grate- 
fill to most sensitive stomachs. It", notwith- 
standing this management, there is deranj 
ment of the digestive apparatus, try, occasion- 
ally, diluted cream, for there are often found 

conditions of the stomach, in these half moth- 
erless ones, with which the chee-e matter 

cow's milk diK^ not agree. 

With these suggestions, no intelligent nurse 
or mother should he at fault 

Andrew Combe says : 

"It is astonishing, indeed, with what exclu- 
siveness of understanding, eating is regarded 
even by intelligent parents as the grand wlor 
Hum or panacea for all the pains and troul 
which afflict the young. If a child falls over 
a stone and bruises its leg, it- are imme- 

diately arrested by a sugar-biscuit stuffed u 
its open mouth. If its temper is discomposed 



bottle-fed babies. 123 

by the loss of a toy, it is forthwith soothed by 
an offer of sweetmeats, the ultimate effect of 
which is to excite colicky pains in its bowels, 
which are worse than the original evil, and for 
which, in their turn, it is presented with ' nice 
peppermint drops/ or some other equally pleas- 
ant antidote. Because the mouth is open when 
the child is crying, and the mouth leads to the 
stomach, parents jump to the conclusion that it 
is open for the purpose of being filled, and pro- 
ceed to cram it accordingly ; forgetting all the 
while that the mouth leads also to the wind- 
pipe, and may be open for the admission of air 
to the lungs as well as of food to the stomach, 
and that if they stuff it with cake or pudding 
when it is open only for the reception of air, 
they run the risk of suffocating the little inno- 
cent, when their only wish is to soothe him. 
Everybody must have seen fits of convulsive 
cough induced by fragments of food being 
drawn into the windpipe in such circumstances. 
" To confound crying and the expression of 
pain with the cravings of hunger, is far from 
being a matter of indifference to the child. If 
food be given when it wishes only to be reliev- 
ed from suffering, the offending cause is left in 
activity, and its effects are aggravated by the 
additional ill-timed distension of its stomach. 
But so far is this important truth from being 



124 OUR DIG EST 10 S. 

sufficiently impressed upon the minds of 
parents and nurses, that nothing is m< 
common, when the infant refuses to swallow 
more, but still continues to cay, than to toss it 
in the nurse's arms, as if on purpose to shake 
down its food, and then resume the feeding. 
And in such attempt.-, it is too true that the 
perseverance of the nurse often gets the better 
of the child, and force- it at I. i ive 

the food at which it really Loathes. 

"'Let appetite, then, be the only rule, but 
allow it to appear, and do not attempt to pro- 
voke it. The br< asi ought d A to In- 
to the infant; it is for him to seek it. He lias 
little need of sucking who takes it with in- 
difference, <>r a- if he were confen in 
He who is hungry acts very differently: all 

his gestures express clearly the want and the 
desire: his eye follows his nurse, and ' 
interpret her every movement It' h 
crying, his cries cease at her approach, and 
smiles replace his tears. If 1 ffered the 

breast, he seizes it with ardor, and the mother 
yields to a natural want/ But it is far other- 
wise when real appetite is wanting, and 'it 
then becomes an act of cruel perfidy to tempt 
the infant by the otter of the breast 11 
can it be expected to resist the temptation, 
when the adult, whose appetite is already 



BOTTLE-FED BABIES. 125 

satisfied at the festive board, yields to the 
solicitations of the host, and gorges himself 
with aliments which he cannot digest V 

" The same intelligent author remarks, that 
the lower animals instinctively avoid this 
'error, and, instead of offering suck too often, 
rather allow themselves to be strongly solicited 
before yielding to the wishes of their young. 
By this provident arrangement, the latter are 
protected from the evils of too frequent eating. 
Many mothers imagine that milk is so bland 
a fluid that it is impossible for an infant to 
take too much of it; but the fallacy of the 
notion is exposed when we recollect that milk 
is coagulated the moment it reaches the 
stomach, and that the real subject of digestion 
is curd — a substance not quite so light as 
milk." 



11 < 



126 OUR DIGESTION. 



THE STORY OP YOUNG SAMUEL. 



When I was a boy my sympathy - 
awakened by what I thought the cruel starving 
of the calves. They were fed only twice a day, 
morning and evening. Eating all day mys 
I thought it very cruel to tie up these p 
helpless things, and give them no food or drink 
from morning till night. 

Each of my brothers had a calf, my si 
had a calf, and I had a calf. The others 
satisfied with John's assurance that twice a day 
was enough; but I knew better, and made such 
a fuss about their starving my 3am, 

that the "powers that be" ordained that the 

feeding in the case of young Samuel should 

as Ins owner directed. Upon the proclamati 

of this ukase, I determined to show 'mi wh 
what, and, to make sure. I lid Samuel myself. 
I gave him all he wanted about once in I 
hours. 

But at the end of six weeks how the reel 
of Vm did crow over me! It was true, as they 
said, that at the beginning of my saw off- 

ing system, as they called it, Samuel was the 
biggest calf in the lot : but at the end of the 



THE STORY OF YOUNG SAMUEL. 127 

weeks, oil what a fall was there, my countrymen ! 
Even my smallest brother's little Fan could 
give Samuel odds. To cap the climax, when 
we untied and turned them all out together, 
little spotted Fan w r ent at my Sam, upon whom 
my hopes had centred as the bully of the yard, 
and wolloped him in just no time. For a long 
time they wouldn't stop plaguing me about that 
good-for-nothing calf. My little sister, who 
could hardly speak plain, asked me one morn- 
ing at the table, " How's 'e p'ophet Sam'el 'is 
mornin' ?" 

From that day to this I have never advo- 
cated the frequent feeding of calves. They do 
best on two meals a day ; and now I have no 
doubt that some other calves I wot of would 
do vastly better on two meals a day. 

Speaking of Samuel, I am reminded of his 
final taking off, which was ignominiously trag- 
ical. While he was illustrating the high-press- 
ure principle, his hair turned in the wrong di- 
rection. At first, I rather prided myself on the 
nice curls, and pointed them out as proofs of 
his superior beauty ; while curly hair, they all 
admitted, was a sign of tough constitution. 
Very soon, however, the tendencies were so 
distinctly pronounced, there could be no doubt: 
Samuel's hair was all pointing toward his 
nose. Somehow, after this, he did not seem 



128 OUR DIGESTION. 

to be a prosperous calf, and, when he was 
about six months old, it was discovered that, 
in addition to his other graces, he was sorely 
afflicted with lice. John said : " All right, 
I'll fix 'em." So he steeped up a piece of plug 
tobacco, and, pouring the infusion on Sam's 
back, he rubbed it backward and forward 
with the stable sponge. Bam ran away when 
he was released, and John remarked, "All 
right; that tobaeker jooce will iix them liee 
right smart." 

Samuel was not at that time my calf. I had 
exchanged with my youngest brother for spot- 
ted Fan, giving a Maltese kitten and my ball to 
boot. His present owner followed after Bam 
when Doctor John discharged him as cured, but 
soon returned with the news that Sam 
drunk. Great as was our respect for Barn's 
capacity for blunders and vices, we hardly be- 
lieved this, and ran out t<> sea Sure enouj 
he was staggering, and soon down he went. 
Sam looked very sick, and made the most un- 
musical sounds I ever heard ; hut after a few 
convulsions he was dead. The boys sat upon 
the calf, and brought in a verdict of death from 
poisoning by tobacco juice; but John stuck to 
it: 

" Twant tobacco, nor notion' of the kind ; 
but 'twas jest the way with that pesky, contrary 




' Sam looked very siek, and made the most unmusical sounds I ever heard," 

P. 128. 



THE STORY OF YOUNG SAMUEL. 129 

calf; lie never would do nothin' like other 
calves." 

I know a great many calves that are grad- 
ually but surely poisoning themselves with to- 
bacco juice. If they would have it rubbed all 
over their backs, it would kill them in an hour 
or less ; but because they keep it in contact with 
only the limited surface of their mouths, it will 
not kill immediately, but will be sure to poison 
and undermine the constitution in the end. 

Ho! all ye calves who smoke and chew, a 
solemn warning I give to you : if you follow in 
the footsteps of my red calf, you won't live out 
your days by half. 

Some will say, " Of course this has refer- 
ence to nicotine or empyreumatic oil or some 
other extract of tobacco ; it can't mean tobacco 
juice of the common sort ; that wouldn't pro- 
duce any such symptoms." My dear fellow, 
if you are not in the habit of using tobacco, 
just take the wrapper off a cigar, wet it, and 
put it into your arm-pit, and then sit down and 
make yourself comfortable. But you won't stay 
comfortable. Very soon you will be sick, then 
you will vomit, then you will look very pale, a 
cold sweat will stand out all over you, you will 
tremble and gasp fearfully, and suffer enough 
in ten minutes to satisfy you that tobacco is 
quite a respectable poison. 



130 OUR DIGESTION. 

But put this leaf in your arm-pit every day, 
and soon nature will accommodate herself to the 
new enemy. And, although a slow cumula- 
tive poisoning will go on, no such violent flurry 
will again occur. 






LARGE EATERS. 131 



LARGE EATERS. 



They are almost always wanting in mental 
activity and j)hysical endurance. I used to 
know a good man who tried hard to be a Chris- 
tian, but failed because he ate too much dinner. 
By the way, this man was really a great curios- 
ity. He superintended a small wood-turning 
establishment, sitting in the office constantly, 
except when he was eating, which was four 
times a day. And when he consulted me about 
his "poor stomach," and I told him flat that 
"he was a pig, a victim of stuffing/ 5 he said, 
" Why, doctor, you are altogether mistaken. I 
am faint half the time, and eat an extra meal 
to keep up my strength and relieve my faint- 
ness." I went at him w r ith fact and physiology. 
At length he was convinced, and promised me 
most solemnly that he would follow my pre- 
scription. It was this : " Eat but two meals a 
day. For breakfast a piece of boiled beef, half 
as large as your hand, a slice of bread, a baked 
potato, with cold water for drink. The break- 
fast should be taken at seven o'clock. For 
dinner use boiled or steamed beef or mutton, 
as large as your hand, with bread and potato 



132 OUR DIGESTIOX. 

and other vegetables at your pleasure ; no des- 
sert; eat the dinner at about one o'clock. 
Take no supper and go to bed early." 

In fifteen days his faintness had disappeared, 
and he was rapidly recovering. To-day he is 
a healthy, active man, and a warm advocate of 
two meals a day, and moderate one.-. Tem- 
perate people, with good digestion, never feel 
their stomachs — forge! they have jhs: 

while these enormous eaters are always hungry, 
or faint, or bloated, or troubled with eructa- 
tions, or acidity, or diarrhoea, or some other 
condition showing a morbid state of the dig 
live apparatus. 

All the very strong men and all the active 
men with whom I have been acquainted have 
been moderate eaters. The physiology of these 
remarkable facts is simply this: It take- a la 
amount of nerve force to digest food. With 
these prodigious eaters aU the nerve fore 
to the stomach, and so nothing is left for brain 
or muscle. 

Persons having a good stomach to 1 
with can, by long practice, learn to digest an 
enormous quantity oi food. If they give their 
whole force and vitality to this busin< — 
grinding grists, they can, in the course <yi e^ 
a short life, grind through immense quantiti 
But as a steady and regular and only occupa- 



LARGE EATERS. 133 

tion, it is hardly consonant with the loftiest 
ambition, and so I advise the other policy, pur- 
sued by such as have nobler aims in life. That 
other policy is to find out just how much food 
is needed to run the machine, exactly what 
fuel is best to keep the steam at the best work- 
ing point, and then never pass these bounds. 

I was astonished at the results of an experi- 
ment upon my own person. For years I had 
eaten three hearty meals a day. At length, 
upon a careful consideration of the physiology 
of digestion, I found I was probably using too 
much of my force in that function. I reduced 
ttf two meals a day, and to about one-half, alto- 
gether, of the quantity of food I had been 
using. I can't tell you what freedom in men- 
tal and bodily activity I experienced. 

I know scores of men with large heads and 
fine, vigorous bodies, who consume so much of 
their nerve force in digestion, that they have 
nothing left with which to achieve those tri- 
umphs which, otherwise, would be so easy to 

them. 

12 



134 OUR DIGESTION. 

The Squire's Indigestion. 

Old Squire H was a very successful and 

substantial farmer in an interior town of Mas- 
sachusetts, and a more amazing eater ne 
lived in any town anywhere. And especially 
much did he eat when fresh pork was to be his 
nourishment. Well, at a certain time one of 
his hogs had been billed The next morning 
there was fresh pork for breakfast, and the old 
man ate most wondrously. In the coarse of 
the forenoon lie ate his Luncheon, consisting 
bread and batter, min and cb At 

noon his dinner consisted of fresh pork, pick 
mince pit- and the osaal accompaniments. His 
afternoon luncheon was like that of the 
noon. When he came home to sapper his 
favorite dish had not been prepared as | 
of that meal. The old man fretted and BColded 
till fresh pork was added to the sabstanti 
lie ate voraciously as usual. In the evening 
he toasted some cheese, battered and ate it. 
Just before going to bed, he roasted a couple 
of apples and ate them. In the night he * - 
taken with a severe colic. The doctor was w 
him till morning, and nearly wrought a mir- 
acle in the old man's life. The next day Bolles 

W , one of his neighbors, went in t 

dole with the old Squire. 



THE SQUIRE'S INDIGESTION. 135 

" Faithful Bolles," said the old worthy, " I 
like to have died last night, I'll never eat 
another roast apple as long as I live, I never 
did love them very well, and last night I ate 
only two, and they nearly killed me." 



Abernethy's Receipt for Indigestion. 

The subjoined, cut from an English paper, - 
is severe to savagery, and, to some extent, un- 
just, but contains, nevertheless, a good deal of 
truth. 

"Alden Gobble, a lover of misrule, was dys- 
peptic, and suffered great uneasiness after eat- 
ing. So he goes to Abernethy for advice. 

" ' What is the matter with you ?' asks the 
doctor. 

"'Why, I presume I have got the dys- 
pepsia/ 

" ' Ah/ said the doctor, ' I see ; a Yankee — 
swallowed more dollars and cents than he can 
digest.' 

r " ' I am an American citizen/ says Alden, 
with great dignity ; ' I am Secretary to our 
Legation at the Court of St. James/ 

" ' Then/ says Abernethy, 'you will soon get 
rid of your dyspepsia.' 

" ' Don't see that inference/ said Alden ; ' it 
don't follow from what you predicate at all ; it 



136 OUR DIGESTION. 

ain't a natural consequence, I guess, that a 
man should cease to be ill because he is called 
by a free and enlightened people to fill an 
important office.' 

"'But I tell you it does follow/ said the 
doctor; 'for in the company you'll keep you'll 
have to eat like a Christian. I never saw a 
Yankee who didn't bolt his food like a boa 
constrictor. How can you expect to dig 
food that you neither take the trouble to i 
sect nor time to masticate? It's no wonder 
you lose your teeth, for you never use them; 
nor your digestion, for you overload it: nor 
your saliva, for you expend it on your 
instead of your food. It's disgusting; it's 
beastly! You Yankees load your atom* 
a Devonshire man does his cart — as full as it 
will hold, and as fast as ho can pitch it in with 
a hay-fork : and then yon complain that such 
a load of compost is too heavy for you, 1\ 
pepsia ! pooh! It's beastly guzzling you mean, 
I tell you what) Mr. Secretary of Legation, 
take half the time to eat that you do to drawl 
out your words, chew your food half as much 
as you do your tobacco, and you'll be well in a 
mouth.' " 

I should hardly venture to introduce such 
severe, almost savage, denunciations from any 
other than the great and honest Abernethv. 



fault-finding of the stomach. 137 

His earnestness was wont to take the form of 
fierce, passionate exclamation. 

Fault-finding of the Stomach. 

I have often wondered what the stomach 
must say while an ordinary meal is coming 
down. This stomach knows perfectly well 
what it needs. It asks at breakfast, say a mod- 
erate piece of steak, a slice or two of stale 
bread, and a baked potato. Now, just stand 
by and see what comes down. First, a great 
mass of greasy buckwheat cakes, now, a swash 
of scalding hot coffee, again buckwheats, more 
coffee, sausage, hot biscuit saturated with melted 
butter, buckwheats, coffee, sausage, hot biscuit, 
and so on and so on for half an hour. And 
here we have an enormous mass of hot, greasy, 
doughy, indigestible stuff swimming in hot 
coffee. 

The stomach asks at dinner, roast beef or 
mutton, with bread, potatoes and other vege- 
tables. Now, what is the conglomeration that 
comes rushing down that red canal? Turtle 
soup, fish, beef, duck, plum pudding, pie, nuts, 
raisins, coffee, and several condiments ; with this 
hotch-pitch, ice-water, ice-cream and wine. 

For supper, the stomach wants nothing, and 

it gets hot biscuit, butter, cake, preserves and 

strong tea. 

& 12* 



138 OUR DIGESTIOX. 

Boarding-houses are beginning to occupy a 
large place in our city and town life. Delicate 
women, with scrofula, congregate in th 
places, gorge themselves after the above fash- 
ion, and for exercise wear a tight corset and 
sit over a register. I cannot think of but one 
good result that comes of this, and that is, a 
large class of very respectable citizen.- — the 
doctors — get a good living out of it. Ask one 
of them to let you look over bis day-book, and 
you will find ten charges for visits to women to 
one charge for a visit t<> a man. 

"That the prevalence of over-eating is a 
genera] error in society, especially among the 
sedentary classes, is strongly presumable, even 
without direct proof, from two almost character- 
istic circumstances, namely, the frequency of 
indigestion in one or other of its numer 
forms, and the almost universal use of purgative 
medicines, with a view to remove from the sys- 
tem the superfluous materials which have been 
poured into it without any natural demand. 

" It is perfectly certain that, in the natural 
state of man, the bowels are quite able to act 
regularly without the aid of laxatives. If they 
are not, the Creator must have failed in accom- 
plishing his aim, a conclusion at which no 
rational mind can arrive." 



EXCESS IN EATING. 139 



EXCESS IN EATING. 



"Sir Francis Head, in his humorous book 
entitled Bubbles from the Brunnens of Nassau, 
by an Old Man, expresses his astonishment at 
the ' enormous quantity of provisions ' which 
the invalids and sojourners at these watering 
places ' so placidly consume ;' and after notic- 
ing 'the heavy masses which constitute the 
foundation of the dinner, and the successive 
layers of salmon, fowls, puddings, meat again, 
stewed fruit, and, lastly, majestic legs of mut- 
ton, which form the lighter superstructure,' 
he adds : ' Nothing which this world affords 
could induce me to feed in this gross manner. 
The pig which lives in his sty would have 
some excuse, but it is really quite shocking to 
see any other animal overpowering himself at 
mid-day with such a mixture and superabun- 
dance of food' (p. 71). On another page he 
returns to the subject and quaintly enough re- 
marks that 'Almost every malady to which 
the human frame is subject is either by high- 
ways or byways connected with the stomach ; 
and I must own I never see a fashionable phy- 
sician mysteriously counting the pulse of a 



140 OUR DIGESTION. 

plethoric patient, or, with a silver spoon on hie 
tongue, importantly looking down his red in- 
flamed gullet (properly termed by Johnson 
" the meat-pipe"), but I feel a desire to ex- 
claim, "Why not tell the poor man at once — 
Sir, you've eaten too much, you've drunk too 
much, and you've not taken exercise enough !" 
That these are the main causes of almost every 
one's illness, there can be DO greater proof than 
that those savage nation- which live actively 
and temperately have only one great disorder — 
death. The human frame was nol created im- 
perfect — it is we ourselves who have made it 
so; there exists no donkey in creation so over- 
laden as our sfomach&i and if is I"' Iheu 
groan under the weight so cruelly imp 
Hum thai we set peoph driving then bef< 
them in herds to drink at one UttL brunnen ' 
(pp. 91, 92)." 

"Professor Caldwell, of Transylvania Univer- 
sity, Kentucky, in one of his vigorously con- 
ceived and very instructive essays, invek 
eloquently against the intemperance i 
countrymen in eating as well as in drinking, 
and tells them that one American consumes 
much food as two Highlanders or two Swiss, 
although the latter are among the stoutest of 
the race. c In temperate eating/ says he, 
perhaps the most universal fault we commit. 



EXCESS IN EATING. 141 

We are all guilty of it, not occasionally, but 
habitually, and almost uniformly, from the 
cradle to the grave. It is the bane alike of 
our infancy and youth, our maturity and age. 
It is infinitely more common than intemper- 
ance in drinking, and the aggregate of the 
mischief it does is greater. For every reeling 
drunkard that disgraces our country, it con- 
tains one hundred gluttons — persons, I mean, 
who eat to excess and suffer by the practice/ 
How, indeed, he afterward exclaims, can the 
case be otherwise, while children and youth are 
regularly taught, hired, bribed, or tempted, i to 
overeat themselves from their birth ? Do you 
ask me for evidence in proof of this charge ? 
Go to our dining-rooms, nurseries, fruit-shops, 
confectioneries, and pleasure-gardens — go even 
to sick-rooms — and you will find it in abun- 
dance. You will witness there innumerable 
scenes of gormandizing, not only productive of 
disease in those concerned in them, but in many 
instances offensive to beholders. The frightful 
mess often consists of all sorts of eatable ma- 
terials that can be collected and crowded to- 
gether, and its only measure is the endurance 
of appetite and the capacity of the stomach. 
Like the ox in rich pasture-ground, or the 
swine at his swill trough, men stow away their 
viands until they have neither desire nor room 



142 OUR DIGESTION. 

for any more. I do not say that such eating- 
matches always and everywhere occur among 
us. But I do say that they occur too frequent- 
ly, and that they form fit subjects for carica- 
ture pictures, by Euroj^ean tourists, of our do- 
mestic manners. I add, however, that similar 
scenes present themselves in every country I 
have visited where provisions are abundant and 
cheap.' " 

"It is a trite observation that medical men 
are constantly exclaiming against the eating 
propensities of their patients and incul 
the practice of temperance. ( ' the m 

eminent physicians of the pree - iys: k I 

believe that every stomach, not actually im- 
paired by organic disease, will perform its ftu - 
tions if it receive reasonable attention; and 
when we consider the manner in which 
generally conducted, both in regard to quanti 
and to the variety of articles of food and drink 
which are mixed up into em* heto 
mass, instead of being astonished at the preva- 
lence of indigestion, our wonder must rather be 
that in such circumstances any stomach is ea- 
pable of digesting at all. In the regulation 
diet, much certainly is to be done in dyspeptic 
eases by attention to the quality oi the articl 
that are taken; but I am satisfied that much 
more depends ujwn the quantity ; and I am 



I 



EXCESS IN EATING. 143 

even disposed to say that the dyspeptic might 
be almost independent of any attention to the 
quality of his diet if he rigidly observed the 
necessary restrictions in regard to quantity/ 
The latter opinion is obviously borne out by 
Dr. Beaumont's observation of the power of 
digestion being limited by the amount of gastric 
juice which the stomach is capable of provid- 
ing — an amount varying with the wants of the 
system, and consequently with the mode of 
life." 

"The stomach and bowels, in fact, are re- 
garded very much as if they were independent 
powers residing within us, and placed there 
purposely for our molestation. So many heavy 
charges are continually brought against them 
that they can scarcely ever be found in the 
right. They are blamed for every act of mis- 
chief which cannot be clearly proved against 
another organ ; and yet, influential as they are 
in affecting our comfort, they are treated by 
us with very little care or ceremony. Their 
powers and wishes are consulted in nothing, 
but their backs are loaded, at the caprice of 
their owners, worse, as Sir F. Head observes, 
than any pack-horse ; nevertheless we abuse 
them most emphatically when they sink to the 
earth overwhelmed by the weight imposed 
on them. They are, in short, the scape-goats 



144 OUR DIGESTION. 

which must bear all our physiological delin- 
quencies and save us the pain of blaming our- 
selves. If they feel uneasy after a heavy meal, 
it is not we who are to blame for having eaten 
it. No, it is the fish which lies heavy on the 
stomach, or the stomach which is nnfortonal - 
ly at war with soup or potatoes, or some other 
well-relished article. We have nothing to do 
with the mischief, except as meek and resigned 
sufferers. We never cat more than enough. 
We never devour Lobsters or oysters or salmon 
or cheese, or anything which experience lias 
told us our enfeebled stomachs cannot digest ! 
We arc too prudent and self-denying tor that. 

And yet, somehow or another, OUT stomachs \ 

hold of all these things iii spite of us, and we 
must pay the same penally as if we had eaten 
them deliberately and with malice prepeo 

The case is hard, no doubt, that we cannot lead 
indolent and slothful lives and yet enjoy the 
incompatible luxury of haying the appetite 

a rustic and the digestion of a tiger; hut since 
we arc so unfortunately constituted that we must 
act like rational creatures or suffer the penalty, 

would it not be a wise proceeding to set a bet 
watch on the stomach and try to subject it to 
more effectual control ¥* 

" According to this law of adaptation, which, 
of course, has its limits, the stomach may he 



''HOW MUCH SHALL I EAT?" 145 

accustomed to the reception of either a larger 
or a smaller quantity of food than the neces- 
sities of the system require. If it is accus- 
tomed to too much, and less than usual be al- 
lowed, an unpleasant feeling of vacuity will 
arise, accompanied by a craving for more ; but 
after a few days the unpleasant sensation will 
disappear, and the feeling of satisfaction be as 
great as if a full meal had been taken, and di- 
gestion will become more healthy and vigorous ; 
whereas, if more food continues to be taken 
than what the system requires, merely to grat- 
ify the temporary craving, ultimate bad health 
will be the inevitable result." 



"How Much shall I Eat?" 

"I can't answer that question. You must 
answer it for yourself." 

" But can't you help me to answer it? Can't 
you give me some test or rule by which I can 
arrive at the true answer ?" 

"Possibly. I will try. Perhaps I shall 
serve you best by giving you my own experi- 
ence. For a loijg time I was in doubt about 
this matter of quantity." 

I had tried the rule of Drs. Philip and 
Paris, which is, that " one must attend to the 
first feeling of satiety." 

13 



I4G OUR DIGESTION. 

I had likewise followed Dr. Hitchcock's rule, 
which is to eat of only one con 

I had read with interest the advice of the 
celebrated Dr. Johnson on this point, which 
that every one must observe after dinner, and 
if he find from his sensations that he ha.- eaten 
too much, he mustn't do it again. 

All these opinions and teachings were inter- 
esting and helpful, l>nt they didn't help 
much just where I mosl needed help. I knew 
very well that, as a habit, I ate too much. I 

always knew when I had finished my usual 
dinner that I had eaten too much, and <>n m 

than one occasion ! w;s BO v. v -I with I 

for the excess that I thrust niv finger in my 
throat and provoked vomiting. 

I never had any difficulty in taking t«> the 
table with me the b lutions, but the dif- 

ficulty was when I began to rat, the \ 

so good and the coin, any was BO pleasant, that 

I forgot my Rood resolutions and went on with 
one delicious course aft* ber till I ate tv. 

as much as I could well dig 

The only rule which has ever served me is 
this : 

On sitting down at the tabl 
plate all that you are to eat y and when th 
finished, quit. 

Fixing the mind on a definite point, it is 



"HOW MUCH SHALL I EAT!" 147 

easy to adhere to it, and then in this way you 
avoid desserts, and likewise the great variety 
which so tempts us on. 

I have known many persons to try this rule, 
and so far as I can now recall, not one of them 
has failed. 

At home, of course, it is easy enough to man- 
age, and away from home it does not excite 
observation. The beef, bread, potato, squash 
and turnip all come at once; when you have 
done with these you have eaten enough. 



Two Meals a Day. 

In addition to this I advise but two meals a 
day. In regard to persons of sedentary habits, 
and persons of leisurely life, there can be no 
doubt that two meals a day are better than 
three. I have no doubt that the two-meal 
system is likewise better for workingmen. 



Illustration of one Law of Digestion. 

A man goes hunting. He takes with him a 
hearty lunch, but comes home at dark tired 
and faint. He is exhausted all over, and very 
naturally feels faint and gone at the pit of the 
stomach. His remedy for this is to fill the 
stomach with steak, fried potatoes, hot biscuit 



148 OUR DIGESTION. 

and butter. The next morning lie can hardly 
stir, and makes certain deductions with regard 
to hunting which would not have been seconded 
by Nimrod. It was not the hunting which did 
the mischief. The system had been inflamed 
in every part by the attempt to digest an enor- 
mous supper with an exhausted stomach. The 
result was, the whole body was inflamed, and so 
was sore all over. He thinks it was tin- long 
walk; but if he had gone to bed after drinking 
a cup of tea and milk, he would have risen in 
the morning BO bright thai he would li 
formed a different opinion of the healthfuln 
of hunting. 

I knew a number of carpenters who tried 
the two-meal system, eating nothing after 
o'clock, taking at supper-time a cup of milk 
and hot tea, and retiring early. Most of them 
were not onlv satisfied, but were enthusiastic 
over their clear heads and nimble muscles. 

When the hard day's work is done, it is not 
the right time to fill the stomach with hearty 
food. The stomach is as tired as other parts 
of the body, and should be allowed, with the 
residue of the body, to rest, and not be put at 
five hours of hard work. 

Workingmen should eat their last meal from 
twelve to one o'clock, and take nothing after 
that but a cup of tea and milk. At first, and 



LET US CONSIDER. 149 

perhaps constantly, a pint of this gently stim- 
ulating and nourishing drink may be taken at 
the close of the day. With this management 
the workingnian's muscles and back will remain 
young much longer, while his brain and vision 
will be clearer and brighter. 



Let us Consider. 

Is it better to eat at noon and go to work on 
a full stomach, or to wait till the day's work is 
done and then do the eating ? Several physi- 
ologists have advised us to wait till the day's 
work is done, rest for an hour, and then take 
the principal meal of the day. This seems 
specious, and not a few have adopted it. But 
it is a mistake. As this is practically a very 
important point, I will give it a careful consid- 
eration. 

One may eat a very hearty breakfast and at 
once engage in hard work ; no harm comes of 
it. No one even advises against going to work 
after breakfast. It is the later meal which must 
be managed. Why is this so? Obviously, 
because digestion requires vital force. Early 
in the day there is enough to spare after the 
brain and muscles are provided for. In the 
middle of the day, while the forces of physical 
nature are still high and strong, there is enough 

13* 



150 OUR DIGESTION. 

left to work and, in addition, digest a good 
meal. But as night comes on, and the arms of 
nature are folded and the man's vital stock is 
run low, there is nothing Left to digest with. 

He began the day with ten gallons of vital 
force. At noon there irere live gallon- left. 
At night the force is ail drawn off He hasn't 
a pint left. With some refreshing, g atJe 
stimulus, like a cup of weak tea, \w must go to 
bed, and alter eight hours' sleep will have his 
ten gallon 7e8Se] full and ready again. Now 

he starts with his ten gallons of d< 

another day. It takes three gallons to do his 

work dining the forenoon, and two gallons to 

digest hi- breakfast During the afternoon he 
consumes three gal] r work and two to 

digest his dinner. Night finds his vessel 
empty, hut ready to 611 again during the eight 

hours of sleep. 

My advice to all is tin- : /■/,' hut tw 
and take the lust am in tfu >,/. 

Von can, it' your stomach feels had, in the 
evening drink a little weak tea and milk. 



PERHAPS A GOOD IDEA. 151 



PERHAPS A GOOD IDEA. 



It is, that eating two meals a day, we should 
eat our usual dinner at breakfast time, and our 
usual breakfast at dinner time. Take the new 
.breakfast, say, at seven or eight o'clock, and the 
new dinner, say, at twelve or one o'clock. No 
supper. 

I have been trying this, and am delighted 
with it. I will not say that I am prepared to 
advise every one to adopt this plan. As I have 
reason to believe that many look to me for 
guidance in matters of health, I am filled with 
a sense of responsibility, and cannot advise any 
considerable change in our dietetic or other 
habits without feeling absolutely certain that 
the change is important. 

If those who read my writings could know how 
long I hesitate in saying certain things which 
seem to me true, and which are absolutely true 
in my own personal experience, but with refer- 
ence to the universality of which I may have 
doubts ; if my readers could know how long and 
painfully I hesitate, how anxiously I inquire 
after the experience of our oldest and most ob- 
serving physicians, how many months and per- 



152 OUR DIGESTION. 

haps years I hesitate before publishing, — they 
would learn that doctrines which I teach in lec- 
tures and books in a jocose way (jocose that I may 
win the attention of many) have been arrived 
at in anything but a light and jocose spirit. I 
trust that I fully realize the obligations resting 
upon a public teacher of hygiene. 

In regard to this interchange between the 
breakfast and dinner, I will explain in few 
words my reasons, and, in doing 90, I must 
repeat a physiological law or (act which app 
in another part of this work. 

At breakfast time we are full of vital fo 
The long sleep has filled the reservoir of our 
physical vitality, and we can digi - >mach- 

ful of hearty food without troubling brain or 
muscle. We can go IV at and fri( 

tatoes directly to <>ur books, or to a hoe, without 
harm; but when the reservoir is half empti 
by the work of the forenoon, roast-beef and 
vegetables will make us a little dull, or p< si- 
tively sleepy. 

Writers never advise you to rest an hour 
after breakfast: it is after dinner. No matter 
how solid the breakfast, everybody 
know that you may go to work immediately 
with brain and body. But after dinner aim 
everybody is dull. 

Now, suppose the hearty meal usually tab n 



PERHAPS A GOOD IDEA. 153 

at dinner time were taken at seven or eight in 
the morning, without the stimulating drinks, 
and then a light meal, mostly vegetable, were 
taken at noon, with a cup of tea or coffee. The 
strong meats would be perfectly digested early 
in the day without any trouble, while the 
light meal at dinner, with the stimulating 
drink, would be easily digested without the 
dullness which now almost uniformly follows 
the dinner. 

Mind, I do not advise this interchange be^ 
tween breakfast and dinner, though I have 
given you what seem to me good reasons for 
it. With myself it has worked like a charm, 
but that does not prove that it will work well 
with you. 



154 OUR DIGESTION. 



WATER. 



Burial-places have often polluted the water 
of wells. 

When society is more fully civilized and 
Christianized, in my opinion human bodies 
will not be buried in tin nd, but they 

will be burned. For my own part, although 
I know that when I Leave this body it will be 
no more to me than my e clothing, still 

I have never been able to look without hoi 
upon my body buried in the ground, with no 
companionship but the worms busy with my 
eye-balls and in my mouth ; but I can contem- 
plate without emotion its burning. 

Besides, it seems to me, as the earth contains 
but a very small — an almost infinitesimal — per- 
centage of material which can be incorporated 
into a human body, that it is hardly honest 
when one dies to hurry down deep into the 
earth that precious and scarce material which 
nature has lent. And although this material 
finally gets back into the great currents oi na- 
ture, even if buried in a lead coffin, how much 
more prompt, and therefore honest, the pay- 
ment of our debt, if by burning the body its 



WATER. 155 

precious constituents are given back at once 
into the atmosphere, that vast granary from 
which all living creatures are fed. 

But returning to the subject of water, I 
would say that rain water which falls in re- 
mote country districts is the purest ; then comes 
river water ; next the water of lakes ; after this, 
common spring water, and then the water of 
mineral springs. The waters of the Black Sea 
and the Sea of Azof, which are only brackish, 
follow next; then those of the great ocean; 
then those of the Mediterranean ; and last of 
all come the waters of lakes which, like those 
of the Caspian Sea, the Dead Sea and the 
great Salt Lake, possess no known outlet. 

It is not necessarily the purest waters that 
are most favorable to health. Man is fitted by 
the Creator to the planet, and as the waters 
upon which we must chiefly depend, and which 
are principally tho?e coming out of the earth 
itself, are charged with various foreign matters, 
we are so contrived that those waters are most 
favorable to our health. Many persons have 
used distilled rain water under the impression 
that the purest waters were the healthiest. Nu- 
merous facts go to prove the contrary. 

Those river waters that flow from mountain- 
ous districts through a hard and rocky soil are, 
on the whole, most favorable to human health. 



156 OUR DIGESTION. 

Next to these the waters of lakes, next to these 
the waters of springs and wells, though in re- 
gard to wells one must discriminate. 



A Word About Wells. 

I once knew a family every member of 
which was attacked with a peculiar kind of ty- 
phoid fever. The fever was characterized by 
peculiar stomach symptoms and an eruption 
which suggested to my mind the presence of 
some organic poison. I set about a careful 
examination of their food and drinks. Upon 
asking where they obtained water for the 
family consumption, I was taken to a well in 
the barn-yard. This well was surrounded by 
several inches of liquid manure. Upon draw- 
ing up a bucket of the water, not only did I 
find that it tasted queer, but I could smell the 
presence of the droppings of the barn-yard. 
The exclusive use of water from a spring in 
a hillside twenty rods away cured them all. 
Thousands of domestic animals have been 
killed or injured by the use of water from 
barn-yard wells. 

I met a very interesting case of a poisoned 
well which came near proving the death oi^ a 
large family. First a diarrhoea attacked them. 
Then there appeared languor, restlessness and 



A WORD ABOUT WELLS. 157 

lack of appetite, with fever, bad taste in the 
mouth and headache. At length, a daughter 
in the family became so ill that I was asked to 
see her. The father, a clergyman, told me, as 
something very curious, that all the family 
were suffering much as Katie was. 

An examination of her symptoms excited 
my suspicions, and I inquired about their table 
and other habits. I questioned them about 
their flour, etc., etc. At length I said, "Let 
me drink a glass of the water which you are 
using." Its taste was not that of pure water. 
Mr. G. conducted me to the well. I drew up 
a bucket of water, tasted it, smelled of it and 
said, " I believe the trouble in your family 
comes from this well." But upon examining 
the surface of the earth for many rods around, 
there seemed to be no cause for the impurity 
of the water. It was an old well, had been in 
use perhaps for a century, and never had be- 
fore been at fault. I asked about drains. There 
certainly was a drain from the cellar, but he 
did not know which way it ran; but as the 
ground at the well was lower than the cellar, 
I thought it not unlikely that the impurities 
came from there. 

We sent for the man who had cleaned the 
drain, and learned that it terminated within 
twenty feet of the well. The strange fault was 

14 



153 OUR DIGESTION. 

corrected, and the family began slowly to re- 
cover, and, after two or three months of con- 
valescence, were restored. 

I want to give another case. I recollect a 
family whose supply of water was obtained from 
a w T ell in a cellar of their house, and was 
pumped up through a pipe into the kitchen. 
This fact I did not know for a year or two 
after they came under my professional care. 

From time to time I had urged such a course 
as to diet, bathing, exercise, deep, etc., as med- 
ical men arc in the habit of urging upon their 
patrons. I had promised them that upon mak- 
ing certain changes they would be greatly im- 
proved, but was mortified that the contrary 
was the result. This puzzled me, and I deter- 
mined at Length to find the bottom of it. 

Upon the inquiry, "Where do you obtain 
your drinking water?" they replied, " In the 
collar;" and, taking me down, they showed me 
a dark, damp collar, with a very disagreeable 
smell, and, lifting up some hoard- from the floor, 
I found an abundant explanation of the gen- 
eral bad health of the family. 

The pipe which came down from the kitchen 
above and entered this well did nor prevent 
the surface-water from flowing in. 

I may remark that during the year previ 
to the occupation of this house by my friend. 



LEAD AND OTHER PIPES. 159 

a family occupying the premises had lost two 
children. 

Nothing could be done but to dig a well at 
some little distance from the house. Soon the 
health of the family so much improved that 
there was no longer any doubt about the cause 
of their ailments. 



Lead and Other Pipes. 

In our water service, lead pipe has been 
very generally employed. With some kinds 
of water, lead seems to be harmless enough; 
with other kinds, the lead is undoubtedly mis- 
chievous. 

Common iron pipes without any lining are 
cheap and very satisfactory. 

The new paper pipe is singularly strong, 
sweet and free from all objections ; besides, it 
is very cheap. 

In some portions of Germany, glass pipe has 
been tried, but it is expensive and liable to 
fracture. 

On the whole, iron and paper pipes are most 
available. 

Paper pipe is made of strong paper wound 
into pipes and thoroughly soaked in tar. It 
becomes so hard and strong that it will bear a 
pressure almost equal to iron, and will not rust 



160 OUR DIGESTION. 

or decay. Besides, it gives no poison to the 
water. As this pipe is cheap, and easily joined 
end to end, I do not see why it may not come 
into general use. Some years ago I laid down 
a thousand feet of two-inch paper pipe, to con- 
vey water from a spring to my house and barn 
in the country. It has never leaked ; it has 
never imparted any perceptible taste to the 
water; in brief, it has proved perfectly satis- 
factory. 



COLD DRINKS DURING MEALS. 161 



COLD DRINKS DURING MEALS. 



Dk. Beaumont, to whom, in writing on the 
stomach, one finds himself obliged to refer so 
constantly, makes a very interesting statement 
illustrating the influence of cold drinks upon 
digestion. He placed his thermometer in St. 
Martin's stomach, and found the temperature 
99°. A gill of water at the temperature of 
55° was introduced. As soon, says Dr. Beau- 
mont, as it was diffused over the interior surface, 
the temperature was reduced to 70°, at which it 
stood for a few minutes, and then began very 
slowly to rise. It was not till thirty minutes 
had elapsed, and all the water had been for 
some time absorbed, that the mercury regained 
its former level of 99°. 

When we reflect that in this case there was 
but a single gill of water, and the temperature 
was 55°, which hardly deserves the name of 
cold, we shall not hesitate in pronouncing upon 
the habit of drinking the usual quantities of 
ice water with our meals, or that of consuming 
at the end of a full meal a dish of ice cream. 

When we remember that a temperature of 
99° is absolutely required to carry forward the 



14* 



1G2 OUR DIGESTION. 

process of digestion, can we doubt, if a gill of 
water at a temperature of 56° produced such a 
marked effect upon the stomach of St Martin, 
a person of the rarest vigor and health — I - 
can we doubt what must be the influence of a 
pint of ice water upon the stomach of a pen 
of weak digestion ? 

It is not intended to say that cold water 
should never be drunk during the meal time, 
because if at the moment the system is thirsty 
— really requires water — it is better to drink 
even iee water than to undertake the m - 
tion and in-alivatinn of a meal with a lack 
the required water in the blood. 

As stated in other places in this volum 
certain amount of water ifi required to carry on 
the functions of the animal economy, and one 
important (unction is to keep the body oool 
during the heated ej by a ra ra- 

tion from the skin. This, during th< wan 
seasons, requires considerable quantities of 
water. So tar as possible, this should be tak 
into the system upon rising in the morning and 
w\xm lying down at night If, during the 
warm season, a quart of water be introduced at 
these two periods, it would tly lesBei 

necessity of drinking at meal times. But : 
is no doubt it is a less evil to chill the stom- 
ach, to reduce its temperature thirty i 



WHAT SHALL WE DRINK* 163 

and to hold it below the point of digestion even 
a half hour or more, than to allow the system 
to go without the requisite supplies of water. 



What Shall we Drink? 

What shall I drink ? is a common question 
from those who arc seriously seeking a higher 
life. 

My answer, in most cases, is this: Drink 
cold water on rising in the morning and on 
lying down at night ; and, unless you find that 
it disagrees with you, drink as much as you 
can swallow. 

If you have good teeth, drink nothing with 
your meals, but if your teeth are imperfect, and 
you must have some assistance in swallowing 
the food, drink hot water and milk, or weak 
coffer and weak tea. If you drink a single cup 
of the best coffee or tea, quite weak, it is, per- 
haps, all in all considered, the best drink. Of 
course, either of these, when there exists a 
decided tendency to cerebral congestion or 
nervousness, may be counter-indicated. They 
should not be drunk hot ; a little over a hun- 
dred degrees is quite warm enough. 

Beside these drinks, I may mention cocoa 
and chocolate, both of which are healthful 
drinks when used in moderation. 



164 OUR DIGESTION. 

Sweet buttermilk is a particularly refreshing 
and healthful drink. Soda-water is a fashion- 
able drink, and, if not used within four hours 
after a meal, and say one glass a day, may be 
a harmless one. Certain root beer- (for exam- 
ple, Ottawa beer) are very palatable and not 
injurious. 

Intoxicating Drinks. 

I shall not in this place undertake to con- 
sider the subject of alcoholic stimulus. Its 
prescription as a medicine by an intelligent 

physician will ever be respected by tin* pub] 
but with me it is a settled conviction that ev< 
form of alcoholic stimulus, though it Ik* that 
of the light French wine-, is injurious. 1 
liquors which have been employed on .-hip- 
board, in Arctic regions, or by armies in hot 
climates, have been shown to be evil and only 
evil. The most overwhelming- proofs have 
been produced before the English Parliament 
that the use of even moderate quantities ^i 
alcoholic stimulus helps to freeze men in the 
Arctic regions, and to produce various fatal 
diseases in the hot climates ; that, in a single 
word, they are, without qualification, bad. 

All those who would investigate this subject 
further, I take the liberty to refer to Dr. Car- 
penter's remarkable essay, which received a 



WHEN TO DRINK WATER. 165 

handsome prize from the British Parliament. 
He leaves us not a peg on which to hang an 
apology for rum. He overwhelms us with 
facts showing that alcoholic stimulus is an 
unmitigated curse to British sailors and sol- 
diers, in all climates and under all circum- 
stances. 

When to Drink Water. 

A large quantity of water is necessary to 
carry on the functions of the animal economy. 

When shall this water be taken into the 
system ? It may be introduced during the 
day, when thirst requires, but it is a capital 
practice, as I have before suggested, to intro- 
duce a quantity on rising in the morning and 
on going to bed at night. Thousands of dys- 
peptics have derived signal relief from these 
internal baths. I have sometimes thought, on 
hearing the testimony of these dyspeptics, in 
regard to the influence of cold water thus 
taken into the stomach, that perhaps, of all 
baths, this is the best. 

In reading the accounts of the great Priess- 
nitz's celebrated institution, in the Silesian 
mountains, one is impressed with the promi- 
nence of water drinking. His patients wan- 
dered about from spring to spring bare-headed, 
looking comfortably crazy, each with a tumbler 



166 OUR DIGESTION. 

in his pocket, and drank usually from five to 
twenty tumblers of water before breakfast. It 
is probably true that no institution has ever 
cured so large a proportion of its patients. I 
believe that those large and daily internal 
baths had much to do with the success of that 
institution. 

Persons who would avail themselves of the 
advantages of this beneficent morning bath 
must exercise a due caution. In beginning, 
the quantity should be small, Bay only a 
mouthful or two. Soon a tumbler will be 
borne, and finally the quantity drunk may be 
very large, and the advantage correspondingly 
increased. 



MINERAL WATERS. 167 



MINERAL WATERS. 



There is something very curious and very 
funny about the mineral-water mania. If a 
man, digging about in a dirty swamp, finds a 
filthy hole in the ground which sends up a dis- 
gusting smell, he gets down upon his kneqs at 
once, sticks his nose into the hole, and, sud- 
denly drawing away almost suffocated with the 
stench, he shouts out to his companions, " Come 
here ! Come here ! Oh, boys, smell of that ! 
That's a big thing ! Ain't that strong ? almost 
knocks a fellow down ! I sweow that's the 
strongest mineral spring I ever smelt. There 
ain't a spring in Saratoga that takes hold 
like that. Talk about this farm being worth 
nothing — I wouldn't sell that spring alone for 
a hundred thousand dollars. I tell you that 
will knock your dysj^epsia and consumption 
and things higher than a kite." 

Isn't it the strangest hallucination ? Nine 
people in ten have a notion that if water only 
smells bad enough it must be " awful healthy." 
If the stuff only makes them " crawl all over " 
as it goes down, they seem to think it is sur- 
charged with salvation. 



u o v 



168 OUR DIGESTION. 

Boston Mineral Spring 1 . 

I wonder if yon ever heard of the famous 
" Boston Mineral Spring." On the morning of 
the 16th of September, 1808, there appeared in 
the New England Palladium (Boston) the fol- 
lowing advertisement : 

BOSTON MINERAL SPRING.— Mr. Hall, having taken op 
his well the last week and deepened it, has the water again ready 
for public use, and much stronger impregnated with its mineral 
quality than before. The water of this well is so mueh like the 
Ballstown water, that it is considered a good substitute in all c 
where Ballstown water is useful. 

Thereby hangs a tale. And, really, it is one 
of the best stories ev< r told. 

The "Boston Mineral Spring n threatened 
to prove a dangerous rival of the Ballstown 
Springs. 

A great many exaggerations have been afloat 
in regard to this famous spring. The simple 
facts, without color or exaggeration, are th< 

On Hawkins street in this city (Boston . 
the old Trull estate, at a point well remembered 
by many Bostonians still alive, a certain well 
was so near a privy vault that, as the wooden 
wall of the privy began to decay, the liquid 
contents oozed through into the well. The well 
began to taste queer, and the proprietor had it 
examined, and it was found to be a very valua- 



MINERAL WATERS. 169 

ble mineral spring. A general flutter ensued. 
Ballstown water was already famous. But here 
was a better spring at their very doors. No 
more long stage-journeys to Saratoga. The 
new spring rose into immediate and enthusias- 
tic favor. It was found to be a perfect panacea 
for many serious maladies. The enterprising 
proprietor put up comfortable seats all about the 
pump, and the pump-handle was constantly 
going. The attendants flew about in response 
to a thousand calls, and business flourished. 
Our venerable Dr. Henchman informs me 
that the crowd of ladies and gentlemen was 
so great during the morning hours (it was 
found that the waters were more strongly im- 
pregnated in the morning, and hence the ea- 
gerness to get early draughts) , that visitors had 
to wait a long time before they could be served. 
Not only was the water drunk on the prem- 
ises, but was taken away in cans, pails, jugs, 
etc., and the proprietor was prospectively a 
millionaire. 

But one morning Mr. Hall came in great 
haste to the father of one of our recent mayors, 
who has told me much of this mineral spring, 

and cried out, " Mr. , the privy vault has 

burst through into my mineral well." 

"Well, well, say nothing; put up a notice 
that no more water will be supplied for the 

15 



170 OUR DIGESTION. 

present, as repairs are needed ; and go to work 
and clean it out." 

When the privy vault had been carefully se- 
cured, and the well cleaned out, the above no- 
tice appeared in the papers. The notice, you 
observe, says, " The water is much stronger 
impregnated with its mineral quality than be- 
fore." This was natural, as it took a little time 
to wash out the remains of the contents of the 
vault. But as soon as this was accomplished 
the mineral qualities of the water entirely dis- 
appeared. 

Mayor Shurtleff, in his interesting work, 
" Boston in Olden Time/ 1 alludes to this min- 
eral spring in Hawkins street in the following 
words : 

" Unfortunately for tlu^ ] m >] >rieter of the min- 
eral spring, a disagreeable story got about that 
the well had lost its mineral qualities and med- 
icinal virtues, and the source of revenue failed : 
and in a short time the Boston Mineral Spring 
was almost entirely forgotten, and kept only in 
remembrance by those who had no specially good 
reason for desiring to forget it. and who occa- 
sionally recalled it as a good story of the uncer- 
tainty of some kinds of earthly riches." 

Again, the Mayor speaks of the " delicious 
and invigorating beverage of the sulphurous 
spring." 



MINERAL WATERS. 171 

The celebrated Dr. Walter Channing, with 
whom I have had an interview this very morn- 
ing in regard to the famous Trull Spring on 
Hawkins street, and who was more than twenty 
years old at the time of the great excitement 
about the wonderful spring, wrote in 1834 to 
Henry Williams, Esq., a letter which was pub- 
lished in the volume "Aqueducts " (to be found 
in all our libraries), in which letter Dr. Chan- 
ning says : 

"Do you not recollect, some years ago, the very 
valuable mineral spring, somewhat suddenly 
burst up into a well, in Hawkins street? 
Thousands visited that celebrated spring. Many 
were cured of very grave maladies. The 
fame of the water spread far and wide ; but, 
alas for the spring and its owner, it was found 
that the mineral impregnation was derived from 
a source of such questionable character (if ques- 
tion it could be), that some serious mistake 
must have been made concerning its medicinal 
qualities. In a day, in a moment from the dis- 
covery, its virtues faded away." 

We can talk about this spring now without 
excitement or disgust, but for years after its 
short-lived but brilliant career it was hardly 
safe to allude to it in the company of the elite 
of the city. Many would turn white around 
the mouth, and many, when asked " How about 



172 OUR DIGESTION. 

that wonderful cure of yours?" would with a 
sickly smile leave the room, to hurry to their 
private rooms, there to bury themselves in a 
train of peculiar reflections. 



More about a Curious Prejudice. 

The notion that these mineral waters are 
healthy must come from the old idea that all 
good medicines are had to take. Most folks 
will never believe that a sagar-ooated pill can 
be as efficacious as one that goes down with a 
shuddering gasp. 

A sort of Scotch-Yankee — a tail, gaunt, un- 
couth customer — came into my some years 
ago, kept his overcoat closely buttoned, and 
asked in a whisper : 

"Can I see you privately about something 
very important ?" 

"Oh," I said, "speak out: my clerk n< 
leaks." 

" Oh, I wouldn't for the world. I tell you it 
is something very important — it's a big thing." 

I sent out the clerk, and then said to my 
mysterious visitor : 

"" Now, sir, speak on ; I have but a moment 
to spare." 

He then slowly unbuttoned his overcoat, 
looked from side to side, and, drawing out of a 



MINERAL WATERS. 173 

deep pocket in his undercoat a black bottle, lie 
pulled out the cork, and again looking to make 
sure that no outsider should overhear, he stuck 
it up to my nose, with : 

"Smell of that. I've got a spring on my 
farm that sends out a stream as big as your 
arm, all just like that." 

" I hope it ain't very near your house, for I 
never smelt such a stink in my life." 

"Why," said he, "that smells exactly like 
some of them Saratoga waters. Don't you 
think it must be awful healthy ?" 

I fear his visions of a second Saratoga gath- 
ered about that spring were somewhat disturbed, 
but still before he left he charged me to keep 
dark, " for," said he, " I tell you it's a big thing, 
and there is enough for us all." 

Another phase of this ridiculous mania is 
often met in the profound opinions of £>eople 
who affect science. One of this class showed me 
the analysis of the waters of a certain spring, 
just now much lauded, and said, "There is chlo- 
ride of magnesium, and bromide of potassium, 
and sesquioxide of manganese. Those must be 
good. I think they are just what I need." 

I congratulated him upon his intimate know- 
ledge of his physiological wants, and assured 
him that, with thirty years of physiological 
study, I had only learned that a sick man 

15* 



174 OUE DIGESTION. 

needs fresh air, sunshine, temperance in food 
and work, a clean skin and plenty of sleep ; 
but, as for these high-sounding ingredients of 
mineral waters, I had not yet learned what 
seemed so easy and clear to him. 



The Colonel's Gout. 

A great many people are constantly on the 
qui vive about new drinks. Most sick folks 
seem to think that if salvation ever comes to 
them it will come from a bottle. Millions 
upon millions of bottles of various fluids are 
yearly drunk in our country for their medi- 
cinal virtues. 

I must tell you a little story. T have a friend 
here in Boston, Colonel B, The Colonel has 
suffered, during fifteen years, from what he calls 
rheumatism, what 1 call gout, lie often comes 
in to advise with me, and never fails to show 
his favorite toe. 1 never allow sueh an occa- 
sion to pass without repeating, in some form or 
another, my belief that, whenever he can come 
down to simple water and a plain diet, he will 
<ret well. On the occasion of sueh a visit re- 
eently I said to him : 

"Colonel, I now wish to prescribe for you/' 

"Well, is it your cold water and starvation 
prescription ?" 



THE COLONEL'S GOUT. 175 

" Colonel, I think you will be interested in 
a new discovery which. I have made, and which 
I am sure, if you take the remedy faithfully, 
will cure you." 

" Well, pray tell me what it is, for I would 
give a fortune to be able to run about as I did 
thirty years ago." 

" Colonel, the new remedy is known as 'prot- 
oxide of hydrogen! " 

" Prot — prot — ox — ox — what did you say it 
was ? Speak that again." 

" It is protoxide of % hydrogen, Colonel." 
" You will have to write that for me. I am 
sure I can't remember it. And you must tell 
me where I can get it." 

" Well, I will write it. There it is : protoxide 
of hydrogen." 

" Now, where can I obtain it ?" 
" Well, at almost any of the drug stores." 
" Do they keep it in bottles, or on draught?" 
" You can obtain it in either form." 
The Colonel started, with the remark, "I 
really believe, doctor, that at last you begin to 
understand my case. I have always told you 
that if I was ever cured it would be with some 
new mineral water, or some such sort of stuff — 
something that would drive this miserable devil 
out of my foot." 



ii 



176 OUR DIGESTION. 

As the Colonel was about to leave, I said to 
him : 

" Colonel, I don't know but I had better give 
you the common name for this new fluid, for 
the druggists may not know it by the scientific 
name." 

" Oh, well, if there is a common name, to be 
sure you had better give it." 

So I took the prescription and wrote the 
word " water." 

"But," said the Colonel, putting on his 
glasses and reading the new word, " is not 
that water ?" 

"Yes, Colonel, that is it. Protoxide of hy- 
drogen is the scientific name for water, and I 
never was more certain of anything than I am 
that, if you will confine yourself to protoxide 
of hydrogen, leave your brandy and cham- 
pagne, those inflamed joints will get well." 

The Colonel threw down his paper and went 
off mad. 

The fact is, that thousands have so long re- 
garded medicines as the only source of relief 
when sick, that if water could be put in bottles, 
slightly colored with some harmless substance, 
and a tumblerful given three times a day, leav- 
ing off tea, coffee and spirits of every kind, 
thousands of people who are now inflaming 
their tissues with these various narcotic and 




'But," said the Colonel, "is not this water P"— P. 176. 



TOM JONES' SPEING. 177 

stimulating drinks would recover from their 
sufferings. 

Tom Jones' Spring. 

I used to know a small farmer in the State 
of New York who had a hard time to make 
the two ends meet. Poor Jones was always 
bemoaning his fate. Barely did he meet a 
neighbor without hauling up for a groan over 
the mysterious dispensations of Providence. 

But it was observed, one day, that he went 
straight by his nearest neighbors and hurried 
on without a groan or a sigh. Everybody won- 
dered. At length he went to Squire Bond, 
and, calling him aside, whispered : 

" Squire, I want to borrow a hundred dol- 
lars. I will pay you in three months, with any 
interest you please." 

" I have the money, Tom, but I don't want 
to lend it without good security." 

" Don't you be alarmed, Squire. I have made 
a discovery on my farm which will make me 
the richest man in the country." 

" Now, Tom Jones, what is it that you have 
discovered ?" 

" Oh, Squire, I can't tell you now, but I 
wouldn't sell my farm for a million of dollars. 
All I want is one hundred dollars to take some 
samples to New York, and I'll show you a 



178 OUR DIGESTION. 

stack of money that will make your eyes stick 
out. I just want to take some samples — some 
samples, Squire — that's all." 

"Samples of what?" 

" Wouldn't tell you for the world. But I'll 
tell you what I'll do, Squire Bond: I will sell 
you the colt for one hundred dollars, but I am 
to have him back at the same price whenever I 
want him." 

The trade was made, and the next day Tom 
disappeared with a heavy trunk but with a 
light heart. He was gone about a week, and 
came back with a light trunk and a heavy 
heart. He went back to work on his farm in 
sullen despair, refusing to say anything of hifl 
trip. He said nothing of his colt, and avoided 
conversation even with his best friends. A 
good many surmises and speculations were in- 
dulged among the neighbors, but at last it v 
given up, like a hard conundrum. 

Some time after, Tom was converted at a 
camp-meeting, and in his experience speech 
let the whole thing out. Tom continued : 

"And now, my dear brothers and sisters, I 
will tell you all about that Xew York business. 
You see, this was just the way of it. I was 
out in my back wood-lot cutting a small tree 
for a cart-tongue, and I thought I smelt some- 
thing queer. At length it came so strong 






TOM JONES' SPRING. 179 

that I cleared away the brush and leaves, and 
finally I found a little wet spot just up under 
a rock. I poked in a stick, and sure enough 
that was it ; the smell came up aw r ful. I threw 
some leaves over the place and went to the 
house for a pick and shovel. After I got ready, 
to go, thinks I to myself, suppose that should 
turn out to be another Saratoga; guess I'd 
better keep shady. So I waited till about ten 
o'clock that night, and took my lantern and 
tools and over I went. I hadn't dug ten min- 
utes before I could dip up a pint. I got down 
two feet and the hole was filled with the stuff 
— real mineral water. I blew out my light, 
covered up the place with brush, and then stayed 
there till morning, studying the best places to 
build the hotels and the best places for roads 
where the big-bugs could ride. I w r ent to the 
house just before daylight, told my wife an 
awful lie about where I had been, and then I 
began to calculate how I should manage it. 
At length I filled twenty-eight beer-bottles 
with the stuff, .packed them carefully in my 
wife's trunk, borrowed a hundred dollars of 
Squire Bond, and went to New York to sell 
my spring to them rich New Yorkers for a new 
watering-place. Just before I started I went 
out to the barn, where I had hid the trunk in 
the haymow, and poured out a teacupful of the 



180 OUR DIGESTION. 

stuff and carried it in to Nancy, I thought it 
was hardly fair to keep my great discovery 
from my own wife. I put it up to her nose, 
and, says I, 'Nancy, what do you think of 
that?' 

" ' Mercy V says she ; * rotten eggs P »ya she. 

" ' Nancy/ says I, ' it's all right ; you mustn't 
say nothing about it; but you won't have to 
work much more ; you will be a real lady/ 
says I. 

"As soon as I got down to New York, and 
began to show it to the big-bugs, they just 
laughed at me, because 1 they said it wa'n't strong 
enough, it didn't take hold like the ra'al jin - 
ine thing; and they Bent me to an old gray- 
headed professor, who analyzed it, and said 
'twas nothing but water with some dead ani- 
mal in it. When he told me that and laughed 
at me, I just threw the stuff out in a yard and 
started for home." 



Have Mineral Waters no Value ? 

"But," some one asks, "do you mean to 
that people are not improved by a season at 
Saratoga ?" 

No. I know they are improved : but those 
who do not drink the waters are quite as much 
improved as those who do — generally, I think, 



HAVE MINERAL WATERS NO VALUE? 181 

more so. And those who patronize the water- 
ing-places where they have no mineral waters 
are quite as much improved as those who patron- 
ize the waters — more so, probably. 

Water, as every physiologist knows, is the 
most important article of our food. But 
neither in this, nor in any other article of 
food, is a bad smell or taste an indication of 
superiority. The Dutchman seems to think 
that his stinking sauer-kraut is the best of 
food, but in this opinion he is not sustained 
by an intelligent public opinion. Bad smells 
and tastes are suspicious, either in foods or 
drinks. 

" But," says my friend Col. S., who has just 
returned from a famous spring in Vermont, 
where he has gotten rid of his rheumatism, 
" what do you say of my case ? I went up to 

Springs unable to walk ten rods, and now 

I can walk ten miles. Your theories are all 
very nice, but will they explain my legs ?" 

Well, let us see. While you were here, you 
spent your days down in that dingy counting- 
room, full of corroding anxieties, and ate rich 
dinners and drank wines with your friends, 
while you made no attempt to exercise, and sat 
up till eleven or twelve o'clock every night. 
Up at the Springs you spent your days out in 
the sunshine, ate berries and milk and other 

16 



182 



OUB DIGESTION. 



plain, simple food, lived a jolly boy-life, tried 
every day to see how much farther you could 
walk, and turned in at nine o'clock every even- 
ing. You, and the victims of dyspepsia of 
whose cures you have told me such wonderful 
stories, need not introduce the disagreeable 
waters you drank to explain the cores. 

I do not mean to say that bilious pills or 
cathartic waters may not relieve a stuffed, 
clogged, over-burdened system, but I do mean 
to say that such means of relief are barbarous 
as compared with temperance, deep, exercise, 
bathing, sunshine, etc., and I db mean to say 
that these natural agencies will cure all curable 
cases, and cure them as rapidly as they can be 
thoroughly and soundly cured. 



TOMATOES. 183 



TOMATOES. 



Some years ago tomatoes were called love- 
apples, and were thought to be poisonous. I 
remember my mother charged me to avoid 
handling them. Some persons thought them 
deadly poisons. That opinion was incorrect. 
Now, you hear people say, " Tomatoes are the 
healthiest of all vegetables, and you cannot eat 
too many of them." That opinion is likewise 
incorrect. The tomato is not the healthiest of 
vegetables, and, if used at all, it should be 
eaten with great moderation, and should be 
cooked. I have known many persons to suffer 
from tender and bleeding gums, from "teeth 
set on edge/' and quite a number from loose 
teeth, produced by eating tomatoes. I have 
known a number of cases of piles caused by 
excessive use of tomatoes. I have several pro- 
fessional friends who have observed the same 
facts among their patients. At the close of a 
lecture which I gave eighteen years ago in 
Cincinnati, on the subject of human food, I 
criticised tomatoes much as I am doing now, 
and among a dozen persons who came upon the 
platform, after the usual fashion, to be intro- 



184 OUR DIGESTION. 

duced to the lecturer, seven testified to having 
suffered from sore mouth, and one from having 
had a peculiar condition of the stomach, devel- 
oped when the tomato season first began. In- 
deed, I believe the idea I am expressing is not 
a new one, even among the people. A great 
many persons have asked me, " Do tomatoes 
contain calomel?" They inferred, from the 
fact that tomatoes produced a sort of salivation, 
that they contained mercury. 

Let me give you a ease. Many years ago, 
while practicing my profession in Central New 
York, I was passing one evening a large 
woolen mill. The proprietor raised the win- 
dow of his office and asked me to stop. I rode 
up to his window, and he said : 

" Please step in a moment ; there is a young 
lady up stairs who wishes to see you." 

Well, I was not surprised at the request, for 
I was then an unmarried man, so I hitched my 
horse and went in. The young lady was sent 
for and soon appeared, with : 

" Oh, ah, yes ; excuse me a moment ; I will 
return immediately." She came back in a mo- 
ment, and, holding out a paper containing about 
twenty teeth, said : 

" Well, Doctor, what do you think oi that ?" 

"I should think there were about twenty 
teeth." 



TOMATOES. 185 

" Yes, but what should you say if I should 
tell you that they all came out of my mouth ?" 

" Well, I should say that you had lost most 
of your teeth." 

" Oh yes ; but what I wish to know is, what 
do you think is the cause of the loss of my 
teeth?" 

" I cannot answer that question. What do 
you think was the cause of it ?" 

Let me remark that, if to any feature of 
what may be called management I attribute 
any share of my professional success, it is to 
the almost uniform practice of asking my pa- 
tients what they think is the matter with them ; 
what they think is the cause of their malady, 
and even what they think will cure them. The 
fact is, that sick people, thinking a great deal 
about their symptoms, and being more inter- 
ested in the history and cure of their maladies 
than any doctor can be, often have clearer 
views of the origin, the nature and the best 
treatment, than the wisest physician can pos- 
sibly obtain in a brief examination. 

Well, this young lady said, " I will tell you 
what I think is the cause of the loss of my 
teeth. Last summer I fell sick, and the doctor 
said I must leave the mill and go into the coun- 
try to rest. I went over the river to visit my 
uncle, a farmer, and remained with him three 

16* 



186 OUR DIGESTION. 

months. Shortly after my arrival I learned to 
eat tomatoes, and during my stay there I ate 
them constantly. I was told that they were 
the healthiest things I could eat, and that I 
could not eat too many of them. I soon 
learned to like them, picked them off the 
vines in the garden and ate them as I would 
apples. Almost immediately my mouth be- 
came sore, and my gums bled freely upon the 
use of the tooth-brush. But I was told this 
was the disease in my stomach working off 
through my mouth. No one suspected the to- 
matoes. "When I came home, I brought with 
me a bushel and a half, and ate them as long 
as I could preserve them. In the mean time 
my teeth had become loose. At length they 
became so very loose that I began to rake them 
out with my fingers, and I now have but one 
tooth left, and, if you would like to have me 
take that out, I can do it with my fingers." 

I told her that I had often soon teeth ex- 
tracted ; that it would be no special gratifica- 
tion to see the last one taken out. But I as- 
sured her, from many facts that had already 
come under my observation, that I had no 
doubt of the general correctness of her opin- 
ions. 

Now, my practical suggestion is this : If peo- 
ple are fond of tomatoes they may eat them in 



TOMATOES. 187 

small quantities, say one or two teaspoonfuls 
of cooked tomatoes at a meal, as a sauce ; but 
I believe that, if a person is already in good 
health, tomatoes are not likely to improve his 
health; on the contrary, that the tomato is 
medicinal, and should never be used in any 
considerable quantity by healthy people. I 
believe that finally they will be put in the 
category with medicines, and prescribed when 
necessary by a medical man. 



188 OUR DIGESTION. 



SALT. 



I have a friend who believes the excessive 
use of salt has much to do with that morbid, 
irritable condition of the solids and fluids 
which characterizes phthisis pulmonalia 

Salt, as an article of human food, has been 
much discussed. Those who claim it is nee Sh 
sary bring many facts to sustain their positions. 
For example, animals in a state of nature, and 
therefore without those morbid cravings which 
a false civilization engenders, are so fond of 
salt that they seek it in journeys of liundr 
of miles, and amidst the greatest difficulties 
and dangers. The hunter has learned that, 
although the deer may be frightened away. 
still, if he wait patiently, the poof creature's 
hunger for salt is such that it will soon return. 
Many birds have such a craving for salt that, 
forgetting their timidity, they fly into the im- 
mediate presence of the sportsman upon a salt 
marsh. Our domestic animals show the greatest 
avidity for salt. Can we deny that all this 
tends to prove that it is not a poison ? The ad- 
vocates of salt bring forward a number of fa 
gathered from observation among the native 



SALT. 189 

tribes of Africa and South America, showing 
that the desire for salt is uncontrollably strong, 
even among the little children of these natural 
tribes. But so far as the question of poison is 
concerned, I should prefer to rest the argu- 
ment upon facts gathered from the lower ani- 
mals. 

The physiological chemist informs us that 
salt is found in nearly all the tissues of the 
body. The readers of history will remember 
that criminals are said to have been tortured 
to death — eaten alive by worms — because de- 
prived of salt. 

The argument against salt is based on physio- 
logical hypotheses, and upon facts showing the 
effects of its excessive use. As to the latter, 
the advocates of salt would not make issue. 

For myself, I never eat more of this condi- 
ment than finds its way into the food while in 
the kitchen, but I believe that a moderate use 
of it is not only harmless, but necessary to 
health. 

I am sorry I cannot quite agree with the 
dietetic reformers on this subject. As a class, 
these laborers are so conscientiously and use- 
fully engaged on behalf of human health, and 
so much have they been ridiculed, that I feel it 
an honor and a privilege to range myself with 
them. But I believe the crusade against salt 



190 OUR DIGESTION. 

is one of those instances of special pleading 
into which reformers devoted to a special work 
are prone to fall. I take the liberty to refer 
those who would investigate the subject far- 
ther, to the physiological chemistries. 



PASTRY. 191 



PASTRY. 



I have often said that, if I were a minister, 
I should frequently mention in my public 
prayers the cake and pie mania. It is bad 
from beginning to end — bad altogether. I can- 
not fully explain the indigestibility of pie. For 
example, a mince pie is a compound of those 
very articles which abound in the most healthy 
food — meat, apples, flour and a few simple con- 
diments. Now, all these articles may be eaten 
in other relations without harm. One may 
make a full meal of them. But put them into 
a pie and make a meal of it ! Your stomach is a 
remarkable one if the brain is not at least a lit- 
tle dull during the process of digestion ; while, 
if your stomach is weak, you will not be likely 
to repeat the experiment. What is true of 
mince pie is, to some extent, true of all pies. 

Now, when we recall that these pies are 
usually eaten at the close of a hearty dinner, 
when nine in ten persons have already eaten 
too much, their use is at once seen to be a seri- 
ous evil. 

I have no hesitation in saying that pies must 
be abandoned by all who would live the high- 
est physiological life. Precisely the same re- 
marks are applicable to cake. 



192 OUR DIGESTION. 



HOW PAT PEOPLE MAY GET THEM- 
SELVES INTO SHIP-SHAPE. 



Even in New England there are a great 
many uncomfortably fat people. I say even 
in New England, because it is supposed that 
Yankees are a gaunt, ghostly folk. But in an 
audience of five hundred almost anywhere in 
New England you may see a dozen uncomfort- 
ably fat people — waddling, wheezy, anti-going- 
up-stairs sort of people. Down in Pennsylva- 
nia, in an audience of the same size, especially 
if you are in a country district, the proportion 
of fat ones is very large. Let me give you a 
case: An immensely fat, panting, red-faced 
woman came to me with a fat word in her 
mouth, "obesity," and standing before me ex- 
claimed : 

" Doctor, just look at me ! Ain't I a sight to 
behold? This is the torment of my life. I 
shouldn't weigh more than one hundred and 
thirty, but I do weigh two hundred and twenty. 
Now just think of my carrying that extra 
ninety pounds whenever I move ! What can 
be done for me ? All summer long I pant and 
perspire and wish myself in Greenland. When 



HOW FAT PEOPLE MA Y GET SHIP-SHAPE. 1 93 

I walk in the street, my sister says I look like 
a Berkshire pig. When I go up stairs in a 
hurry I just lose my breath altogether, and 
plump myself down into a chair and gasp it 
back again. Now, what can be done for me ? " 

" Has your husband a horse ?" (I knew he 
had several.) 

" Oh yes ; why, you know he keeps a stable- 
ful." 

" Do they ever get too fat ?" 

" Oh yes ; you know my husband keeps fast 
horses. I hear about nothing else the year 
round but '2.40, 2.31, 3-4/ and 'that they are 
too fat/ and that 'they are out of condition/ 
and all the rest of it ; you know the phrases." 

"When your husband's horses get too fat, 
can he reduce them ?" 

" Oh yes, very easily." 

" How does he do it?" 

" Why, he reduces their food and gives them 
more exercise." 

" Madam, all I have to say is, ' Go thou and 
do likewise.' " 

" What, starve ? Why I have tried that for 
months together. What I have eaten wouldn't 
keep a mosquito alive, and I have grown fatter 
and fatter all the time." 

"Madam, you must excuse me, but what 
you are saying lacks accuracy. You eat and 

17 



194 OUB DIGESTION. 

drink too much, or you would not be in this 
condition." 

" Well, tell me how little I should eat." 

" I cannot tell you that, but I can say that 
you should reduce the quantity which you are 
now eating, and you must learn to live with 
very little drink. This last will help you 
much. 

"To be particular, let me say, go on with 
just such food as you like. If you are fond 
of meat, all the better ; increase the proportion 
of that article a little. Masticate the food very 
thoroughly, so that you will not need much 
drink to swallow it. When you have a desire 
for drink, content yourself with a single mouth- 
ful. In a week or two you will be surprised to 
find how the wish for water has disappeared. 
If you can learn to get on with one tumblerful 
of water, or other drink, per day, this fat, 
shaky condition will at once begin to disap- 
pear. 

" But to speak of your food again : reduce 
the quantity you now eat one quarter, and 
after, say two months, reduce another quarter. 
This reduction will probably be sufficient, if 
you rigidly observe what I have said about 
drinks. 

"If, in addition to this, you exercise your- 
self into a profuse perspiration once or twice 



HO W FAT PEOPLE MA Y GET SHIP-SHAPE. 195 

a day, you will be astonished to find how soon 
your clothes will become loose. Why, madam, 
there is not a fat person under fifty years of 
age in the country who might not get himself 
or herself into comfortable proportions in less 
than half a year." 

"Doctor, what do you think of Banting's 
system ?" 

" I think just this : If people have no con- 
trol of their appetites, that system is a good 
thing, although sure to produce an abnormal 
condition of the tissues. We cannot use meat 
above a certain percentage in our food without 
deranging the general health. A feverish, 
hard pulse, and a certain condition of the 
stomach and liver, which will show itself in a 
darkening of the complexion — these and other 
symptoms will show, when we eat more meat 
than we should, that the vital processes are 
not going on well ; and, besides, this expedient, 
which Banting advises, of living on meat, is 
entirely unnecessary. It is infinitely better to 
keep up about the usual proportions of meat 
and vegetable food, and simply reduce the 
quantity." 

" But, doctor, if I go into this thing as you 
advise, it seems to me that I shall hardly be 
able to keep on my feet, I shall be so faint and 
weak." 



196 OUR DIGESTION. 

" Madam, you are entirely mistaken. Any 
person, ^vhen too fat, will only experience a 
sense of lightness and increasing strength 
when making a judicious reduction in the 
amount of food and drink. He or she will 
breathe better, move quicker, and feel that a 
great load is being removed. 

"For example, a man weighs, Bay two hun- 
dred and fifty pounds, and should weigh, to be 
active and healthy, one hundred and seventy- 
five pounds. This man is carrying about an 
extra seventy-five pound-, interfering with his 
respiration and activity : in other words, cut- 
ting short the two great conditions of health, 
viz., respiration and exercise. Yet that man 
goes on pulling and Mowing until he dies, and 
dies prematurely, too, for excessive fat is inimi- 
cal to longevity, 

"Another word or two about drinks. All 
fat people are large drinkers; and when we 
remember that about three-fourths of the 
human body are water (if we put a human 
body into an oven and make it perfectly dry, 
it will £0 down from one hundred and fifty to 
about forty pounds'), you see what an intimate 
relation with this fat condition the large use 
of drinks may have. And it is not difficult to 
learn to s;et on with but little water. A man 
weighing two hundred and fifty has sixtv or 



HO W SHALL THIN PEOPLE GET PL UMPf 1 97 

seventy pounds more of water in his system 
than it needs. So he must drink but little 
water, and he will soon get on comfortably, 
not only without suffering but with improving 
health. You must exercise yourself into a 
profuse perspiration twice or three times a 
day. 

" Madam, before you leave, I want to say one 
other thing: you must not sleep too much. 
Long sleep fattens. Don't go to bed very 
early, but get up very early in the morning. 
Seven hours in the twenty-four, or say six hours 
for a while, will do for you. In other words, 
madam, my prescription for you is, keep your 
eyes open and your mouth shut" 



How Shall Thin People become Plump? 

But for one flit person there are, especially 
in New England, a dozen lean ones. Here 
comes a young woman of twenty-five, who looks 
as though she were thirty-five, and the pre- 
maturely old look comes from this clinging of 
skin to the bones. See how hollow her temples 
and cheeks are ! 

Casting her eyes about the office to see that 
nobody overhears, she says : 

"Doctor, what can be done for these dry 
bones ? Why, I can hardly make a shadow ; 

17* 



198 OUE DIGESTION. 

and while I ought to be plump at twenty 
(which she desires me to understand is her age) , 
here I am looking like an old grandmother. 
Can anything be done for these crow's feet 
about my eyes and these scrawny collar- 
bones?" ' 

"Well, this is curious; a woman in just the 
opposite condition has this moment left here. 
She is carrying ninety pounds too much flesh. 
That makes her miserable. Now you have 
not enough by twenty-five pounds, and that 
makes you miserable. I have prescribed for 
her, and, if she follows the prescription, in six 
months she will lose her extra pounds. If 
you have no disease, but -imply a lack of fat, 
I am sure I shall be able to prescribe for you, 
so that the desired twenty-five pounds or more 
will come in about the same length of time/ 1 

"I am perfectly well, and I am strong, too, 
only I am such a skeleton. n 

" Let me question you a little. What time 
do you go to bed ?" 

" Generally about eleven or half-past eleven." 

"This must be changed. Instead of going 
to bed at eleven or half-past eleven, if you are 
really in earnest about getting a plump, youth- 
ful appearance, you must go to bed at half-past 
eight or nine o'clock. With a fresh, plump, 
youthful body, a single hour in any company 



HO W SHALL THIN PEOPLE GET PL UMP ? 199 

will gratify you and your friends more than 
a dozen nights with this fagged and old look. 
So go to bed at half-past eight or nine o'clock, 
and don't be in a hurry about getting up in the 
morning. On going to bed and on getting up 
in the morning, drink as much cold water as 
you can sw r allow. Soon you will learn to drink 
two tumblers ; and some persons may learn to 
drink still more. Drink all that your stomach 
will bear. Spend a good deal of time in the 
open air without hard exercise, but exposed to 
the sun. If practicable, ride in a carriage some 
hours every day. Remain out enough to give 
you a good appetite, but don't work hard 
enough to produce excessive perspiration. Eat 
a great deal of oat-meal porridge, cracked 
wheat, Graham mush, baked sweet apples, 
roasted and broiled beef, though the vegetable 
part is more fattening than the animal part. 
Lie down an hour in the middle of the day, 
just before you take your dinner, to rest, and, 
if possible, take a little nap. Cultivate jolly 
people. ' Laugh and grow fat' rests upon a 
sound physiological basis. A pleasant flow of 
the social spirit is a great promoter of diges- 
tion. There, now go home; keep your skin 
clean, sleep in a room where the sun shines, 
keep ,every thing sweet and clean and fresh 
about your bed, sleep nine, if possible ten, 



200 OUR DIGESTION. 

hours in the twenty-four, eat as I have told you, 
cultivate the jolly spirit, and in six months you 
will be as plump as even your lover could 
wish. 

" My prescription for the fat lady was, keep 
your eyes open and your mouth shut. 

" My prescription for you is, keep) your eyes 
shut and your mouth open" 



NOISES IN THE BOWELS. 201 



NOISES IN THE BOWELS. 



These are heard mostly in ladies of seden- 
tary habits. And I know of nothing more 
annoying. 

A cultured and sensitive lady, whose rich 
imagination is familiar to the reading public, 
came to consult me about her " intestinal con- 
certs." Within two months she came again to 
report a perfect cure. I gave her no medicine, 
indeed I did nothing for her. I simply told 
her one little secret. It is this. You have 
twenty feet of small intestine which is, say, one 
inch in diameter. The contents of this tube 
are constantly moving onward. So long as the 
tube is the full size the contents will move on, 
generally without any noise ; but if you squeeze 
a part of the tube and make it smaller than the 
remainder, when the liquid contents pass along, 
in crowding through this reduced part, sounds 
will be produced. Now that corset with the 
long bodice does that very thing. The pres- 
sure reduces the size of a part of the small in- 
testine, and the contents in crowding through 
that contracted part get up the glug-glug con- 
cert. 



202 our DIGESTION. 

" I see it," said she, " I see it, and my dress- 
maker shall begin to-day." 

Afterward she came in, as I have stated, to 
report the verification of my diagnosis. 

"But," said she, "why don't you doctors 
write and talk about these things ? How are 
we to find out about them unless those who 
make our bodies a special study tell us ? For 
my part, I can't see why I shouldn't have gone 
on till I had developed a grand abdominal 
oratorio, if some one had not explained the 
trouble." 

Well, here it is, and I hope it may inform 
and warn many. If I had given my patient a 
few sugar-coated bread pills, with the direction 
that she must allow no pressure upon the 
bowels, and had spoken a little mysteriously of 
the wonderful ingredients of the pills, that they 
numbered nineteen, and that a part of them 
had been obtained from a tribe of Indians re- 
siding in a ravine on the southwestern declivity 
of the Himalaya mountains, while a portion of 
the ingredients had been procured from a 
French physician, part Indian, who was found 
among a tribe of Indians on the western decliv- 
ity of the Rocky Mountains, and that no man 
on earth but myself understood the secret of 
the compounding, I should have had a hun- 
dred applications for the wonderful medicine ; 



I 



NOISES IN THE BOWELS. 203 

but now that the treatment has only common 
sense to recommend it, I am afraid very fevf 
will heed it. 

Of course it will be understood that I have 
spoken of the pressure of the whalebones as a 
cause of these intestinal noises, though this 
pressure is by no means the only cause. There 
are certain articles of food, as every one knows, 
which fill the bowels with gases. Excessive 
eating will likewise produce a turmoil. But 
these causes are much more likely to produce 
sounds in a fashionably-dressed lady than in a 
man or in a woman who dresses in a natural 
way. 

While water will pass through a pipe of a 
given size without sound, reduce the size at one 
point, and at that place the water, in crowding 
through, will produce a gurgling. I have 
known persons to suffer from intestinal sounds 
on account of a false position in sitting, inci- 
dent, perhaps, to some occupation. 



204 OUR DIGESTION. 



COLDS. 



The old saw, " Stuff a cold and Btan 
fever," has been the source of infinite mischief 
When you have taken a cold and have aome 
local inflammation, as, for example, a nasal 
catarrh or an inflamed throat, it is just as im- 
proper to eat stimulating food as with any other 
inflammation. If, for example, the oold assume 
the form of pleurisy, no one proposes to feed it 
on beef and mince pie. Bui I aee no reason 
why a pleuritic stitch may not be fed upon 
beef, if lungs inflamed by a oold may be. 

When you are attacked again with a hard 
cold, treat it as follow-, and your faith in the 
old saying will quickly disappear. 

You have a hard oold. Eat no supper. < ho 
going to bed drink two tumblers of cold water. 
On rising in the morning drink freely of cold 
water. For breakfast c j at a piece of dry bi- 
as large as your hand. Go out freely during 
the morning. For dinner eat about the same 
as you ate at breakfast During the afternoon 
take a sharp walk, or engage in some acti 
exercise which shall produce a little - ra- 
tion. Go without your supper and retire early, 



COLDS. 205 

drinking, before you jump into bed, as much 
cold water as you can swallow. The next 
morning you are nearly well. 

If, instead, you feed the cold, it will stay a 
week or ten days, and wind up with a hard 
cough and expectoration. 

This feeding the cold belongs to the same 
chapter with that stupid advice which prescribes 
whisky in consumption, a disease always ac- 
companied by a rapid pulse and other indica- 
tions of inflammatory action. 

A cold is not, as many think, the result 
alone of exposure to a sudden change in the 
atmosphere. Don't you know you sometimes 
say, when exposed to cold or damp, " Now, I 
shall take my death cold"? — and yet, next 
morning you are astonished to find that you 
have no cold. At another time you have a 
hard cold, and you say, " Dear me ! how did I 
take this cold ? I am sure I have not exposed 
myself. I cannot understand when I took this 
dreadful cold." These familiar facts ought 
long since to have suggested to us that colds 
depend but little upon external changes in the 
atmosphere. 

A cold is the product of two factors : one is a 
certain condition of the within, and the other 
is a certain condition of the without. The only 
soil in which this plant can grow is a certain 

18 



206 OUR DIGESTION. 

condition of the system, the prominent feature 
of which is a deranged stomach. Those who 
have good digestion very rarely have colds. 
So, to prevent colds, you must keep your stom- 
ach in good condition ; in other words, you 
must keep yourself in high health. 

There are some habits which give a special 
tendency to colds. For example, the use of 
hot drinks, which, in addition to flooding and 
weakening the stomach, open the skin, and in- 
crease thereby sensibility to the influence of 
external changes. The use of warm baths, i Es- 
pecially warm foot baths. Bleeping in cl 
unventilated rooms. Wearing the Bame flannela 
during the night that have been worn during 
the day. Using fat meats and pastry, thereby 
deranging the stomach and liver. 



WATER-BRASH OR HEART-BURN. 207 



TREATMENT OP WATER-BRASH OR 
HEART-BURN. 



The means most commonly employed by the 
ignorant is the use of some alkali to neutralize 
the acid. A little soda, for example, relieves 
the suffering at once. But this chemical rem- 
edy is not a good one. Strange to say, the 
opposite course is more successful, viz., the 
employment of small doses of acids. I have 
known persons who had suffered long from 
water-brash, to cure themselves by the daily 
use of a little vinegar or a few drops of lemon 
juice after each meal. 

Mr. J., a college student, consulted me dur- 
ing his junior year for a most distressing heart- 
burn. It seemed to me a case in which a cure 
might be effected on the Homoeopathic law, and 
I prescribed twenty drops of lemon juice to be 
taken at the close of each meal. He called 
upon me several months after to say, that it not 
only had cured him, but that he had resolved 
himself into a doctor among his fellow-students, 
and that lemon juice was known as a good 
remedy throughout the whole institution. He 
had, in prescribing the lemon juice for water- 



208 - OUR DIGESTION. 

brash, been careful to urge the omission of 
drinks at and immediately after meals, and 
likewise the avoidance of soups. In fact, 
sufferers from the malady under consideration 
may obtain relief by a dry diet. 

In speaking of the employment of alkalies 
in acidity of the stomach, I forgot to say that 
the saliva, which is alkaline, gives great relief. 
I have, for a good many years, been in the 
habit of advising my patients, who might be 
temporarily afflicted with heart-barn! to chew 
spruce gum and swallow all the saliva. It 
affords the most grateful relief, and i> not ob- 
noxious to the same objection which may be 
urged against soda, saleratu- and other Btr 
alkalies. 

Of course, the cure of this affection is to be 
sought in the discontinuance of the table error 
which produced it. It is not easy, in round 
terms, to say what this error is. But the dis- 
continuance of drinks at meal time and of 
liquid foods will generally give relief. It 
may be necessary to discontinue pastry, fat 
meats and butter. It would be a rare i 
that did not give way at once under a beef 
and bread diet, drinking only water, and that, 
so far as practicable, on rising in the morning 
and lying down at night. I have prescribed 
this with success in hundreds of cases. 



CURIOUS TREATMENT OF DYSPEPSIA. 209 



CURIOUS TREATMENT OP DYSPEPSIA. 



Some years ago a physician in New York 
city published a small book, in which he gave 
well-written certificates of marvelous cures of 
dyspepsia. Patients began to flock to him. 
Their introduction to his treatment was very 
queer. He took the patient into his consulta- 
tion office, examined his case, and if it was one 
he could cure, he announced his fee as five 
hundred dollars, to be paid in advance. If 
the patient's confidence was strong enough the 
money was paid, and then the doctor took him 
through a hall, up a flight of stairs, through 
another hall, then through a room, down a 
flight of stairs, up a flight, down a flight, then 
to the right, then to the left, and at last they 
arrived in a small room without windows, 
artificially lighted, and in that room the patient 
was required to put his name to a solemn vow 
that he would never reveal the modes of treat- 
ment. 

This being all finished, the patient was in- 
troduced to the treatment. It consisted in 
slapping the stomach and bowels. Besides this, 
the patient was required to live temperately, and 

18* 



210 OUR DIGESTION. 

much in the open air. On rising in the morn- 
ing, he was required to spend from five to ten 
minutes in striking his own abdomen with the 
flats of his hands. THien he went out for a 
morning walk after having drunk a tumbler or 
two of cold water. At eleven o'clock in the 
forenoon he spent a quarter of an hour or more 
in slapping the bowels with his hands. Then 
he laid dow r n to rest. He dined temperately 
at two o'clock, and spent the afternoon in 
sauntering about. At seven o'clock in the 
evening he repeated the percussion, and went 
to bed at nine o'clock. A majority of the 
cases of dyspepsia that Bought relief at this 
establishment had used all the other means 
except the dapping; that is to say, they had 
lived on plain food and much in the open air. 
It was the slapping, the pounding with the f. 
kneading with the fists, sometimes with the fists 
of an attendant, that cured these people, for 
cured they certainly were. Marvelous cores 
were effected in this establishment. After the 
death of the doctor, some of his patients felt 
themselves absolved from the obligation, and 
one of them described the treatment to me. 

In every ease of indigestion, no matter what 
may be its character, slapping the stomach or 
bowels with the ilats of the hands on rising in 
the morning, four hours after breakfast, and in 



CURIOUS TREATMENT OF DYSPEPSIA. 211 

the evening on going to bed, is excellent treat- 
ment. I cannot conceive of a case of chronic 
indigestion which such manipulation would not 
relieve. 

If the patient be so weak that he cannot per- 
form these slappings or kneadings upon his own 
person, the hand of a discreet assistant should 
be employed. 

It is marvelous how the body, the stomach 
for example, which, when these manipulations 
are first practiced, may be so very tender that 
the slightest touch can hardly be borne — it is 
marvelous how in two or three weeks a blow 
almost as hard as the hand can give is borne 
without suffering. 

Nearly all soreness is relieved by judicious 
handling. For example, you stick a needle 
into your finger. Let it alone, and it will ache 
for an hour and be sore for a day. But lay 
the finger down upon your knee and beat it 
with your other hand, the pain and soreness 
will disappear as if by magic. 

You have a pain in the side or across the chest; 
percussion will relieve it almost immediately. 
But constipation, dyspepsia, torpidity of liver 
and other affections of the abdominal viscera 
are relieved more surely and completely than 
any other class of affections by percussion, 
kneading, etc. Such treatment comes under 



212 OUR DIGESTION. 

the head of counter-irritation. A new circu- 
lation is established in the parts near the point 
of suffering and congestion. Besides this, es- 
pecially in abdominal troubles, the manip- 
ulations appeal directly to the contractility of 
the weak and relaxed vessels in the affected 
part. 

Mr. P., an esteemed clergyman, came to me 
many years ago about his stomach. The diffi- 
culty, from which he had suffered for a long 
time, was bloating after each meal, followed by 
a tumultuous flatulence. The bloating was 
excessive that he was obliged to unbutton his 
garments, while he Buffered from labored 
breathing sometimes for two hours. After 
becoming satisfied that the difficulty was not 
likely to leave spontaneously, I determined to 
prescribe the following manipulation and noth- 
ing else. 

1st. On rising in the morning percuss the 
stomach and bowels with the flats of the hand-, 
without holding your breath, for ten minutes, 
as hard as you can bear. 

2d. Just before eating your dinner, repeat 
the dose. 

3d. Just before going to bed, double the 
dose. 

In a week he was better, and in less than a 
month well. 



CURIOUS TREATMENT OF DYSPEPSIA. 213 

I am speaking within the truth when I say, 
that I have prescribed the same thing for a 
thousand dyspeptics with happy results. 

I will briefly describe another case which 
greatly interested me: Miss M., a music 
teacher, came to consult me about her stom- 
ach. She was dreadfully blue, confessed that 
she had harbored thoughts of suicide, and 
begged that I would give her something which 
would either kill or cure. Her stomach was so 
sensitive to touch that she was obliged to re- 
move all pressure from her clothes. 

When I advised percussion and knead- 
ing she looked frightened, and exclaimed, 
" What ! pounding right on my stomach ! why 
it would kill me !" 

But was there no part of the abdomen which 
would bear a slight blow ? 

" Perhaps so, if the blow was very slight." 

Then begin at that place, and you will be 
surprised to find how soon you can push your 
blows near the stomach. After a little you 
will strike the stomach itself a hard blow, and 
a hundred of them. Then the work of restor- 
ation will go on rapidly. 

She could not believe me, but partly prom- 
ised to try it, if I would engage to pay the 
funeral expenses in case it killed her. 

Two or three months afterward I was de- 



214 OUR DIGESTION. 

scribing the symptoms of dyspepsia in a pub- 
lic lecture, and when I came to speak of the 
despondency which constitutes the most un- 
happy result of the malady, I noticed a lady 
whispering and gesticulating very earnestly to 
her companion, and recognized in her Miss M., 
the pianist and my patient. 

After the lecture she sought me and be- 
gan with, " I have no doubt you thought me 
crazy when I consulted you." 

" Certainly, you were insane. All genuine 
dyspeptics are insane. Generally their insan- 
ity is of a harmless sort, and so they are al- 
lowed to go at large; but I can take you over 
to our large insane asylum and show you fifty 
victims of dyspepsia, and they are the most for- 
lorn wretches in the institution/' 

She went on to tell me about the treatment. 
At first it seemed impossible to bear it, but 
after a week she began to bear the blows di- 
rectly upon the stomach itself when her lungs 
were full and the breath was held ; then she 
could bear slight blows without holding the 
breath. Now she could strike a full blow di- 
rectly upon the stomach without flinching. In 
fact she was well, and intended to remain well 
if pounding would do it, and she rather thought 
it would. 

A young lawyer, suffering a painful indigos- 



CURIOUS TREATMENT OF DYSPEPSIA. 215 

tion produced by irregular restaurant eating, 
which is becoming a fruitful source of dys- 
pepsia in our cities, came to consult me. 

In addition to certain changes in his table 
habits, I urged percussion of his stomach and 
bowels. When I spoke of percussion, and 
showed him how it was done by slapping my 
own stomach, he cried out : 

" You might as well tell me to pound on a 
boil." 

Well, I replied, even that is not so terrible 
as you imagine. I once had a large boil on 
one of these tendons on the back of my neck, 
and suffered indescribably day and night for 
nearly a week. I could not sit up, I could not 
walk, I could not stand, I could not lie down. 
At length I thought my senses must leave me. 
Our family physician was called in. He ad- 
vised two quarts of hot flaxseed poultice. Poul- 
tices of many sorts we had been trying from 
the beginning, and so we were ready to listen 
to an old English nurse, who was sure she 
could rub the tightness, hardness and pain out 
of the great red mass. Of course, we thought 
that rubbing would be dreadful. But she 
begged so hard to be allowed to try that we 
were at length persuaded, though my mother 
Was sure it would kill the boy. She began at 
a little distance from the boil, and after a time 



216 OUR DIGESTION. 

made gentle approaches. In one hour she was 
rubbing hard upon the boil itself. She was 
not surprised, for she had witnessed the like 
performance in Yorkshire, at 'onie, but we were 
astonished. 

The tension of the nerves, and consequently 
the pain, began to give way. I fell asleep, and 
did not awuke for nine hours. 

A few years ago, and nearly forty years after 
my own experience in this novel treatment, 
I had in my own family a negro servant who 
was afflicted with a large and very painful boil 
in the same spot on the back of his neck. I 
proposed the rubbing, and he fairly screamed 
with fright. But at length his sufferings w< 
so great that I determined to try an experi- 
ment, with the hope that I might help him to a 
little sleep, for which he seemed to be alm< et 
dying. I etherized, him profoundly, and then, 
stripping off his poultice, I went at his great, in- 
flamed boil as if it were nothing but a mass of 
insensible meat. I rubbed, kneaded, percoflB 
thumped and squeezed till the hard mass was 
as soft as a rubber ball with the air half out. 

When Tom began to return to consciousness, 
I hastily replaced the poultice, and, when he 
could speak, I asked him how his neck felt. 

"Very queer/' he replied ; " why, it feels as 
if it was asleep : all sorter numb." 



CURIO US TEE A TMENT OF D YSPEPSIA. 217 

He slept all night, and the next morning I 
overheard him telling one of his fellow-serv- 
ants that " That sleepy thing is the bulliest 
doctor-stuff I ever went anywhere." 

Rubbing and kneading for chronic maladies 
is no new thing. For hundreds of years a 
class of women know T n as " rubbers " have fig- 
ured conspicuously in England. And, while 
their operations have in the main been con- 
fined to persons of the lower classes, instances 
of a very notable character have occurred, in 
which sick people of the highest social stand- 
ing have called in these rubbers, where all 
other means had failed. Remarkable cures 
under such circumstances have become historic. 

A large class of women have devoted them- 
selves to the same work in Mexico. Indeed, 
this sort of manipulation has become nearly 
universal. And I venture the assertion, that 
the most remarkable cures ever achieved among 
us have been the w r ork of the rubbers. These 
peripatetic doctors, who cure by " laying on of 
hands " (which means rubbing, and generally 
of a very violent sort) , do perform wonderful 
cures. I know that physicians generally sneer 
at these miracle workers, but if with their 
drugs the doctors could perform such cures as 
these quacks do actually achieve, there would 
be no end to the glorification. 

19 



218 OUR DIGESTION, 

We physicians may shut our eyes and ears, 
and cry " humbug " as long as we please, the 
people know very well that thousands of ex- 
hausted invalids, who have passed entirely be- 
yond our drugs, are rubbed back into life and 
health. And I will add the opinion that still 
other thousands who are waiting in vain f! or sal- 
vation to come from a bottle, might be restored 
by judicious rubbing. 

There are numberless sufferers from uterine 
disi^lacements and inflammations, who submit 
to an endless round of indecent and torturing 
applications without avail, who might by lying 
down flat, with the shoulders as low as the hips, 
and having a little daily kneading and percus- 
sion of the lower part of the abdomen, obtain a 
relief which they can get by no other means. 

But it holds true that no other class of a£ - 
tions is so immediately, decidedly and perma- 
nently impressed by these manipulate 
those of the digestive apparatus. There 
be imagined a case of indigestion in which 
rubbing, kneading and | don will not 

prove useful. Nor do I believe there is any 
other affection of the organs of the abdominal 
cavity which is not benefited by such treat- 
ment. 

I should add that if the dyspeptic be weak 
and the movements of the hands fatiguing, he 



CURIOUS TREATMENT OF DYSPEPSIA. 219 

should seek other hands to do the work. The 
value of the movements is often greatly en- 
hanced by the patient's lying down on his 
back, quite horizontal, and having the manip- 
ulations administered by another person. 

Ling, the great author of the " Swedish 
Movement Cure" system, has made an im- 
mense contribution to our means of restoring 
chronic invalids ; but this rubbing, kneading 
and percussion treatment, which really consti- 
tutes the most valuable feature of his system, 
was not original with him, but was borrowed 
from an humble class of his countrywomen, 
" who went about doing good " as rubbers. I 
presume that their great success gave him his 
first ideas of the " Movement Cure." 

We doctors have long known about the value 
of this rubbing treatment, and sometimes, when 
we have a case that we are desperately deter- 
mined to save, we take off our coats and go at 
it ; but then it is such dreadfully hard work, 
and it is so much more jirofessional and ele- 
gant to do up a mysterious dose in a pretty bot- 
fle with a pretty label. You see if we take 
off our coats and go to rubbing with our naked 
hands like any common mortal, we sink our- 
selves in your estimation, because you can do 
that, without going to a medical college, just as 
well as we can. Surely, you can't fail to see 



220 OUR DIGESTION. 

that for a physician loaded down with medical 
knowledge — anatomy, physiology, pathology, 
surgery, obstetrics, medical jurisprudence, etc., 
etc., to say nothing of a full equipment of 
Latin and things — for such a man to take off 
his coat, roll up his sleeves, and stay all night 
to rub and lift a poor fellow back into life 
again, — you certainly can't fail to see that such 
a course would be a vulgarity which no edu- 
cated medical man who respected his profession 
would submit to. All that kind of prostitu- 
tion of our noble calling is well enough in 
these peripatetic quacks, bu1 f r those who 
have been through a "regular course " — in 
fact, it is one of those vulgar irregularities 
which no "regular" likes even to think 

But to be serious, the temptation to avoid 
all such simple manual labor, such things 
the nurse can do as well or better than the 
doctor, the temptation to hold ourselves aloof 
from such things, and to deal only in the mys- 
teries of the dose, is very strong. In this we 
are clearly above and apart from you, or. if 
you doubt the " above," you will not deny the 
" apart." We know what we are doing, or you 
think we do, which is all the same thing, and 
you don't know, which gives us an immense 
advantage. Xow we can't he expected to vol- 
untarily abandon this little illusion, which gives 



CURIOUS TREATMENT OF DYSPEPSIA. 221 

us not only our professional dignity, but our 
living. Strip us of this, and we should be as 
helpless as a clergyman who is deprived of his 
firstly, secondly and thirteenthly in his theo- 
logical disquisitions, and compelled to preach 
love to God and man as all there is of it. 

But I appeal again to your sense of propri- 
ety and the fitness of things. On the one hand, 
we give you a small bottle containing a mys- 
terious liquid. Perhaps you ask what it is. We 
tell you it is a " preparation/' and that it con- 
tains six ingredients : one of them attends to 
the liver, one tones up the stomach, another 
fixes the kidneys, still another corrects the 
secretions, etc. ; that we have denied ourselves 
sleep in thinking over your case in all its bear- 
ings, and that if one day does not witness a 
change we shall take the whole case into very 
anxious and serious consideration, etc., etc. 
The shallowest mind must see that all that has 
a scientific and profound look, and gives room 
for the imagination, but with sleeves rolled up 
and perspiration rolling down, where's the 
chance for the imagination? I appeal to the 
public. 

But the Doctor will say, "Why not direct 
the nurse to do this manipulating ?" 

It may be replied that it requires a rare in- 
telligence to know just when, and how, and 

19* 



222 OUR DIGESTION. 

how much. For myself, I may say that I 
have never puzzled my brain in my selection 
of a medicine as I have during a night when 
trying to rub and lift a poor, fainting, dying 
fellow back into life. And besides this, which 
is vital in many a case, the patient's confidence 
is a great and decisive influence. The poor 
sufferer stands face to face with death ; he has 
no strength of his own ; his eyes roll from 
side to side, looking for help ; he is drown- 
ing and catching at straws ; the night is 
long and dreary; he cannot forget himself 
in sleep; he would give the world if the 
Doctor were only there; how can he wait for 
morning ? 

"Oh God, will daylight never come again?" 
Do you really think it is of no consequence 
that the Doctor should he present during th 
critical night hours? Thousands, who have 
left their weeping friends about Pour o'clock in 
the morning, could have been carried through 
if the Doctor, in his earnest, brave way, all 
confidence and cheerfulness, had, with coat 
off, and with his warm, magnetic hands upon 
the patient's back and abdomen, imparted of 
his vitality just what was needed to make a 
balance in the sick one's favor. 

" But," says the nice, proper Doctor, 4 * if we 
were to treat our patients in that way, we 



CUEIO US TEE A TMENT OF D YSPEPSIA. 223 

should not be able to treat many, and what 
would become of our living?" 

If we doctors did our duty by our patrons, 
in warning them against the mistakes which 
produce their sicknesses, there would be quite 
enough of us to attend to all the very sick 
cases, in just the way I have named. And 
as to the compensation, nothing is more unfair 
than when two young men start out in life, 
giving one three years to learning the carpen- 
ter's trade, the other three years to learning 
the doctor's trade; nothing is more unjust than 
that the carpenter should work all clay for 
three dollars, and the doctor receive three 
dollars for an hour. Generally, the carpenter 
uses quite as much brains as the doctor. 



224 OUR DIGESTION. 



STARVATION AS A CURB FOR DYS- 
PEPSIA. 



Many dyspeptics have completed the ruin 
of their stomachs by starvation. Observing 
that, for the time being, it affords relief, they 
conclude that in this they are to find a cure. 
But after a while they learn, to their sorrow, 
that the stomach with almost nothing to do 
accommodates itself to this nothing, and I 
the power of digestion. 

An intelligent lady said : 

" About a year ago I began to suffer from 
heartburn and constipation. A friend advised 
me to go without supper, and take only a 
small quantity of bread and baked apples for 
breakfast and dinner. At first I was delighted 
with the change. All my nervousness and low 
spirits passed away, and I thought I had dis- 
covered an important secret After a time I 
found that even the small quantity I had been 
eating was too much, and I reduced it still fur- 
ther. Within three or four months my stom- 
ach and my whole body became so weak that 
I found the least increase in the quantity of 
food, or any unusual exercise, produced great 



STAR VA TION AS A CURE FOR D YSPEPSIA. 225 

weakness and suffering in my stomach. Within 
the year I have lost more than thirty pounds 
of flesh, and my stomach is now so weak that 
an extra swallow of water, an extra ounce of 
bread or an extra baked apple produces great 
suffering." 

This woman, being young, will recover, but 
it will be through much suffering. I recom- 
mended the moderate use of meat, and a grad- 
ual increase in the quantity and strength of 
her nutriment. 

The tone of the stomach, like the tone of 
the muscles, may be lost by lack of exercise. 
While it is the common thing to find dys- 
pepsia produced by excessive and injudicious 
eating, it certainly is not very uncommon to 
meet cases of dyspepsia produced by starva- 
tion. 

There is a curious fact about digestion which 
is not easily explained. It is that hard-work- 
ing men can digest strong food with greater 
satisfaction than light, digestible things. For 
example, I have known many such persons 
who could digest hard-boiled eggs easier 
than soft ones. They not only relished them 
better, but the hard ones seemed to agree better 
with their stomachs. 

An old woman, to whom I was mentioning 
this fact, said : 



226 



OUR DIGESTION. 



" Sartin ; I allers knowed that, and I'll tell 
ye why. Now my old man couldn't never eat 
pap, it turned his stummick ; but, laws 'a mercy, 
how that critter would put down cheese ! Ye 
see there was something in the cheese for his 
stummick to git hold on. John never could 
write with limber pens, but with a ra'al stiff 
one he could write fust rate — something to git 
hold on," 



BILIOUSNESS. 227 



BILIOUSNESS. 



A cleegyman comes to see me a dozen times 
a year about his biliousness, I know a great 
many people who are bilious. They have no 
dyspepsia, they never had a symptom of dys- 
pepsia in their lives ; they are only bilious. 

Now this word biliousness is a sort of respect- 
able cover for piggishness. Reader, are you 
bilious? (Rather a hard question after the 
above remark.) Let me prescribe for you. 
If you follow my prescription, and don't get 
speedily well, write me, and in the next edi- 
tion of this work I will announce my error. 

First, on getting up and going to bed drink 
plenty of cold water. Eat for breakfast, until 
the bilious attack passes, a little stale bread, 
say one slice, and a piece half as large as your 
hand of boiled lean beef or mutton. If the 
weather is warm, take instead a little cracked 
wheat or oat-meal porridge. 

For dinner take about the same thing. Go 
without your supper. 

Exercise freely in the open air, producing 
perspiration, once or twice a day. In a few 
days your biliousness is all gone. This result 



228 OUR DIGESTION. 

will come, even though, the biliousness is one 
of the spring sort, and one with which you 
have, from year to year, been much afflicted. 

Herb drinks, bitter drinks, lager beer, ale, 
whisky, and a dozen other spring medicines 
are simply barbarous. 

I had a friend, a lawyer, living at Buffalo, 
N. Y., who was famous for bilious attacks. 
Once or twice a month he had an attack of 
bilious headache, and sometimes was obliged to 
ask the postponement of an important suit. 
At length, tired and disgusted, he came to me 
and asked if nothing could be done, for really 
it w r as getting to be the torment of his life. I 
told him how to eat and drink and exercise, 
and promised him if he would follow my pre- 
scription he should never have another bilious 
sick headache. My prophecy proved true as 
to two or three years, but after a time he got 
back into the ale, strong coffee, sausage, buck- 
wheat cakes, hot rolls, melted butter and other 
abominations, and of course his old headaches. 
But he knew the remedy, and when it became 
too hard to bear he fell back upon the prescrip- 
tion, and has never failed to obtain relief. 

A great many persons seem to be quite will- 
ing to suffer a constant depression of spirits, 
constant indigestion, with its innumerable tor- 
ments, entirely willing to sutler all this for 



BILIOUSNESS. 229 

the momentary pleasure of slipping down their 
throats something which tastes good. I can 
think of nothing else which so strikingly ex- 
hibits man's undeveloped condition. 

Is it not funny to see a dyspeptic whose 
life is one unbroken torture, w r ho wishes him- 
self dead, who never has a good night's sleep 
and never a single happy, social hour, whose 
whole life is a failure, both as to enjoyment 
and usefulness, but who, three times a day, 
shovels into his stomach a quantity of greasy, 
hot, indigestible trash, to keep up the flame, 
producing and reproducing the suffering ? As- 
sure him that this is the cause of all his suf- 
fering, and he replies, in the spirit of a mar- 
tyr: 

"Oh, I suppose, doctor, it is so, but then, 
after all, I go for 'a short life and a merry 
one.' " 

Short life and a merry one, indeed ! That's a 
grim joke. Merry! Why, a. temperate man, 
who eats just what he needs, and enjoys the 
harmonious play of all his powers and faculties 
of body and soul, has more happiness in one 
day than one of these " short-and-merry-life " 
fellows has in a year. The temperate man's 
life is one constant flow of solid enjoyment. 
He is conscious of usefulness, of filling a place 
in the world, while this short-and-merry-life 

20 



230 OUR DIGESTION. 

gormandizer and drinker is afflicted with the 
thought that his life is blasted. 

What the dyspeptic means by " a short life 
and a merry one/' is the momentary tickling 
of his palate with plum pudding, followed by 
six hours of belching and groaning. 



Cornaro's Testimony. 

This distinguished nobleman, at about the 
fortieth vear of his age, when he seemed lit- 
terly ruined by his gross excesses, saw death 
staring him in the face, and resolved upon a 
temperance which should be as complete as had 
been his indulgences. In his eighty-third year 
he wrote a work known aa"Sure and Certain 
Method of Attaining a Lon<j and Healthful 
Life." 

This work was followed by three others on 
the same general subject, composed at the a 
of eighty-six, ninety-one and ninety-five, re- 
spectively. His works were translated into 
Latin, French, German, English and oilier 
languages. The English translation reached 
its thirty-ninth edition in 1845. 

Cornaro used to say that " He who would 
eat a great deal must eat but little, and that 
what we leave after making our meal does us 
more good than what we have eaten." 



COBN ABO'S TESTIMONY. 231 

Cornaro exclaims : " Oh, blessed temperance, 
how worthy art thou of our highest esteem, 
and how infinitely art thou preferable to the 
irregular and disorderly life ! Nay, would 
men but consider the effects and consequences 
of both, they would immediately see that there 
is as wide a difference between them as there is 
between light and darkness, heaven and hell." 

Again, Cornaro says: "Many have said to 
me, € How can you, when at a table covered 
with a dozen delicious dishes, content yourself 
with one dish, and that the plainest on the 
table? It must surely be a great mortification 
to you to see so many charming things before 
you, and yet scarcely taste them/ This ques- 
tion has frequently been put to me, and with 
an air of surprise, I confess it has often made 
me unhappy, for it proves that the persons 
have got to such a pass as to look on the grati- 
fication of their appetites as the highest hap- 
piness, not considering that the mind is prop- 
erly the man, and that it is in the reflections 
of a busy mind that a man is to look for his 
true and highest happiness." 

He goes on: "When I sit down with my 
eleven grandchildren to a table covered with 
various dainties, of which, for the sake of a 
light, easy stomach, I may not at times choose 
to partake, it is no mortification to me. On 



232 OUE DIGESTION. 

the contrary, I often find myself most happy 
at these times. How can it otherwise than 
give me great delight, when I think of the 
goodness of God, who blesses the earth with 
such immense stores of good things for the use 
of mankind? And must it not make me very 
happy to think that I have got such a mastery 
over myself as never to abuse any of those 
good things, and am perfectly contented with 
such a portion of them as keeps me always in 
good health ? Oh ! what a triumph of joy is 
this to my heart ! what a sad thing it is that 
young people will not take instruction nor get 
benefit from those who are older and wiser than 
themselves! I may use in this matter the 
words of the wise man : ' I have m en all things 
that are done under the sun.' I know the 
pleasures of eating, and I know the joys of a 
virtuous mind, and can say, from long expe- 
rience, that the one excelleth the other as far 
as light excelleth darkness. The one are the 
pleasures of a mere animal, the other those of 
an angel." 

Again this great and good nobleman, as he 
neared death, in his extreme old age, cried out, 
" Oh, sacred and most beautiful temperance, 
how greatly am I indebted to thee for rescuing 
me from such fatal delusions, and for bringing 
me to the enjoyment of so many felicities, and 



CORNARO'S TESTIMONY. 233 

which, over and above all these favors conferred 
on your old man, has so strengthened his stom- 
ach that he has now a better relish for his dry 
bread than he had formerly for the most ex- 
quisite dainties. My spirits are not injured by 
what I eat, they are only revived and supported 
by it. I can immediately on rising from the 
table set myself to write or study, and never 
find that this application, though so hurtful to 
high feeders, does me any harm. And beside, 
I never find myself drowsy after dinner, as a 
great many do. The reason is, I eat so tem- 
perately as never to load my stomach or op- 
press my nerves, so that I am always as light, 
cheerful and active after meals as before." 

" It is true indeed," says he in a letter to the 
Right Reverend Barbara, Patriarch of Aqui- 
leia, " that what I have to tell you is no news, 
but I never told it you at the age of ninety- 
one. Is it not a charming thing that I am able 
to tell you that my health and strength are in 
so excellent a state that, instead of diminishing 
with my age, they seem to increase as I grow 
old? All my acquaintances are surprised at 
it, and I, who know the cause of this singular 
happiness, do everywhere declare it. 

" I must confess it was not without great 
work that I abandoned my luxurious way of 
life. I began with praying to God that he 

20* 



234 OUR DIGESTION. 

would grant me the gift of temperance, know- 
ing that he always hears our prayers with de- 
light." 

When Cornaro was ninety-five years old, he 
writes : " I find myself as healthy and brisk as 
if I were but twenty-five. Most of your old 
men have scarce arrived at sixty before they 
find themselves loaded with infirmities. They 
are melancholy, unhealthful, always full of 
dreadful apprehensions of dying. They trem- 
ble day and night for fear of being within one 
foot of the grave, and are so strongly possessed 
with the dread of it, that it is a hard matter 
to divert them from the doleful thought." 

I take great pleasure in quoting the testimony 
of Cornaro. An honored member of a noble 
family, himself distinguished for the rarest 
virtues, he fell into the prevailing vices of his 
time — gluttony and drunkenness. At the age 
of forty he had become immensely gross, and 
entirely abandoned and broken down. 

A. council of medical men, after long delib- 
eration, ventured to assure him that nothing 
but an entire change in his habits could save 
his life ; that although he had already arrived 
at middle life, he might recover if he would 
observe the strictest temperance. Convinced 
at last, Cornaro said, " I will follow your in- 
structions." They directed twelve ounces of 



EFFECTS OF EATING TOO MUCH, 235 

solid food and fourteen ounces of liquids per 
day. He lived till about one hundred, in the 
enjoyment of singular health and youthful 
spirit. 

The opinion of Mr. Abernethy, one of the 
ablest English physicians of the past, concern- 
ing Cornaro's system of dieting is thus ex- 
pressed : " When patients apply to me, I offend 
them greatly by telling them they have their 
health in their own keeping. If a man were 
to do as Cornaro did, he would be rewarded 
for it by a long and happy life. The principal 
beauty of Cornaro's life was the happy state 
of mind in which his continued temperance 
preserved him. Now what I propose as a diet 
is Cornaro's diet; and it is no fanciful system. 
The diet should always be of a moderate quan- 
tity ; it should not be wholly vegetable or ani- 
mal, but it ought to be of a nutritive kind." 



Effects of Eating* too Much. 

Prof. Hitchcock, under this head, says : 
" But men do not perceive the bad effects of 
over feeding, because in general they are igno- 
rant of their character, and confine their atten- 
tion to the more immediate effects instead of 
looking at those which are remote. They gen- 
erally suppose that, if the stomach or any inter- 



236 QUE DIGESTION. 

nal organ be oppressed or disordered, pain will 
be produced in the organ itself; whereas, the 
uneasiness and pain are most commonly in some 
other part, not unfrequently a remote part, of 
the body. And, oftentimes, food which ulti- 
mately does the man a great deal of injury 
gives to the stomach a transient relief, just as 
piling a large quantity of wood upon a fire 
seems for a time almost to extinguish it. Thus, 
the dyspeptic is oppressed with a sense of gnaw- 
ing and faintness at the stomach previous to his 
meals. The immediate consequence of eating 
to satiety is to remove this uncomfortable sen- 
sation, and to produce a glow in the system 
which at first is not disagreeable. Hence such 
a man concludes that his hearty meal has done 
him good. True, he feels an indisposition to 
bodily or mental effort, and perhaps drowsin 
and sleep come over him for two or three hours : 
but this he considers no bad omen ; indeed, his 
nap refreshes him for the time, and, although 
the thought may enter his mind that perhaps 
he has eaten rather too much, should headac 
or heartburn come on, yet, by a cup of tea or a. 
little exercise, he gets rid of these, and fancies 
that when he has forced the food from his stom- 
ach, no farther bad effects will result from a 
little excess in quantity. Should he have dis- 
turbed sleep and restlessness, the nightmare or 






EFFECTS OF EATING TOO MUCH. 237 

unpleasant dreams, the following night, he 
scarcely thinks of referring the mischief to the 
dietetic excesses of the preceding day. His 
appetite is good the next day, and he takes the 
same course, viz., to eat as much as his stomach 
craves ; and although overloaded nature raises 
those signals of distress which I have men- 
tioned, he is ignorant of their meaning until 
after a few weeks or months, when gloom and 
jealousy enshroud the mind as forerunners of 
the storm that is about to burst. 

" A man never thinks of imputing these feel- 
ings to his excess in eating, although in fact 
they are the direct consequence ; and, indeed, I 
am more and more convinced that most of the 
depression of spirits which accompanies nerv- 
ous complaints might be prevented by rigid 
abstemiousness in diet. 

"Another remote consequence of eating too 
much is uneasiness and irritability of temper, 
especially in the morning, which most men 
never regard as having such an origin. The 
greatest gluttons we ever beheld (except one), 
says a medical reviewer, were meagre men, 
whose tempers became so crabbed that even 
their children have wished them dead. That 
these are real dyspeptics is proved by their cure 
being practicable, if they are subjected to the 
same regimen which dyspeptics require." 



238 OUR DIGESTION. 

Dr. Johnson mentions a curious case illus- 
trative of this effect of excessive eating upon 
the mind. He had a hypochondriacal patient, 
who " was every second day affected with such 
an exasperation of his melancholy forebodings 
that he did nothing but walk about his room, 
wringing his hands, and assuring his servants 
that the hand of death was upon him, and that 
he could not possibly survive more than a few 
hours. Under these gloomy impressions he 
would refuse food and drink, and, in fact, give 
himself up for lost. The succeeding sun, how- 
ever, would find him quite an altered man. 
The cloud had broken away, hope was re- 
kindled, and the appetite for food and drink 
was indulged ad libitum. Next morning all 
would be despair, and nothing but death could 
be thought of. So he went on, as regular 
light and darkness. But if, on the good day, 
he could be kept on a very small portion of 
food and the bottle unopened, the next would 
be good also. This, however, could seldom be 
done, for as soon as he felt a respite from his 
miseries, procured by one day's abstinence, he 
returned to his indulgences and again irritated 
his stomach and bowels, and through them 
reproduced the blue devils in the mind." 

Most of the ancient philosophers might be 
named as patterns of health, temperance and 



EFFECTS OF EATING TOO MUCH. 239 

long life. Pythagoras, in particular, restricted 
himself to vegetable food altogether, his din- 
ner being bread, honey and water : and he 
lived upwards of eighty years. His followers 
adopted the same diet, and with results equally 
striking. It is well known, also, that the early 
Christians were remarkable for temperance, and 
'for longevity too, when not removed by perse- 
cution. Matthew, for example, according to 
Clement, lived upon vegetable diet. "The 
Eastern Christians, who retired from persecu- 
tion into the deserts of Egypt and Arabia, 
allowed themselves but twelve ounces of bread 
per day as their only solid food, and water 
alone for drink, yet they lived long and 
happy." St. Anthony lived 105 years ; James 
the Hermit, 104 ; St. Jerome, 100 ; Simon Sty- 
lites, 109 ; Epiphanius, 115 ; and Romauldus 
and Arsenius each 120. 

Galen, one of the most distinguished of the 
ancient physicians, lived 140 years, and com- 
posed between 700 and 800 essays on medical 
and philosophical subjects ; and he was always, 
after the age of 28, extremely sparing in the 
quantity of his food. The Cardinal de Salis, 
Archbishop of Seville, who lived 110 years, 
was invariably sparing in his diet. One Law- 
rence, an Englishman, by temperance and 
labor, lived 140 years; and one Kentigern, 



240 OUR DIGESTION. 

called St. Mongah, who never tasted spirit or 
wine, and slept on the ground and labored 
hard, died at the age of 185. Henry Jenkins, 
of Yorkshire, who died at the age of 169, was 
a poor fisherman, as long as he could follow his 
pursuit, and ultimately he became a beggar, 
living uniformly on the coarsest and most 
sparing diet. Old Parr, already famous, who 
died at the age of 153, was a farmer of ex- 
tremely abstemious habits, his diet being solely 
milk, cheese, coarse bread, small beer and whey. 
At the age of 120 he married a second wife, 
by whom he had a child. But being taken to 
court by the Earl of Arundel as a great curios- 
ity, in his 152d year, he very soon died, as the 
physician decidedly testified after dissection, in 
consequence of a change from a parsimonious 
to a plentiful diet. Henry Francisco, another 
famous case, lived to about 140 in this country, 
and was, except for a certain period when he 
became attached to ardent spirit, " remarkably 
abstemious, eating but little, and abstaining 
almost entirely from animal food;" his favorite 
articles being tea, bread and butter and baked 
apples. A Mr. Ephraim Pratt, of Shutesbuiy, 
Massachusetts, who died at the age of 117 years, 
lived very much upon milk, and that in small 
quantity ; and his son, Michael Pratt, attained 
to the age of 103 years by similar means. In- 



EFFECTS OF EATING TOO MUCH. 241 

deed, great longevity has occurred in no in- 
stance with which I am acquainted, where the 
individual was not a pattern of abstemiousness 
in diet. Great eaters never live long. A vo- 
racious appetite is a sign of disease, or of a 
strong tendency to disease, and not a sign of 
health, as is generally supposed. Ill health 
as infallibly follows the indulgence of such 
an appetite as any other effect its legitimate 
cause. 

Dr. Cheyne was a celebrated English physi- 
cian who flourished more than a century ago. 
In the early part of his life, he was a volup- 
tuary, and before he attained to middle age he 
was so corpulent that it was necessary to open 
the whole side of his carriage that he might 
enter ; and he saw death to be inevitable, with- 
out a change of his course. He immediately 
abandoned all ardent spirit, wine and fer- 
mented liquors, and confined himself wholly 
to vegetables, milk and water. This course, 
with active exercise, reduced him from the 
enormous weight of 448 pounds to 140, and 
restored his health and the vigor of his mind. 
After a few years, he ventured to change his ab- 
stemious diet for one more rich and stimulating. 
But the effect was a recurrence of his former cor- 
pulence and ill health. A return to milk, water 
and vegetables restored him again, and he con- 

21 



242 OUB DIGESTION. 

tinued in uninterrupted health to the age of 
72. His numerous works are full of most 
earnest exhortations to temperance in all re- 
spects. As to eating, his aphorism was: "A 
constant endeavor after the lightest and least 
of meat and drink a man can be tolerably easy 
under, is the shortest and most infallible means 
to preserve life, health and serenity." He rec- 
ommends the following quantity of food and 
drink as sufficient for a healthy man, not 
following a laborious employment, viz.: eight 
ounces of meat, twelve of bread or other vege- 
table food, and about a pint of wine or other 
generous liquor, per day. Invalids, those of 
sedentary employments, and students, he says, 
must reduce this quantity if they wish to pre- 
serve their health and freedom of spirits. 



Other Interesting" Historical Pacts. 

Abernethv gives the case of an English 

Quaker whom he advised to eat but twelve 
ounces a day. The Quaker afterwards wrote 
him : 

" By following thine advice, I have got rid 
of what thou didst consider a very formidable 
local malady ; and upon thy allowance of food 
I have regained my flesh and feel as compe- 
tent to exertion as formerly, though I am not 



INTERESTING HISTORICAL FACTS. 243 

indeed so fat as I used to be. I own to thee 
that, as I got better, I thought thy allowance 
rather scanty, and, being strongly tempted to 
take more food, I did so, but I continued in 
the practice of weighing myself, and found 
that I regularly lost weight upon an increased 
quantity of food, wherefore I returned to that 
which was prescribed to me." 

Zeno lived to the age of 98 years, and was 
never sick. To his great temperance and mod- 
eration he owed his continued flow of health. 

John Wesley was remarkably abstemious in 
his habits, and yet his life was long and labor- 
ious. 

Dr. Rush, though feeble in body, and with 
a tendency to consumption, performed great 
labors and lived to a good age. He was very 
temperate in eating and drinking. The testi- 
mony of Dr. Franklin is strongly in favor of 
a simple and abstemious diet. He says, "When 
about sixteen years of age, I happened to meet 
with a book written by one Tryon, recommend- 
ing vegetable diet. I determined to go into it. 
My brother, being yet unmarried, did not keep 
house, but boarded himself and his apprentices 
in another family. My refusing to eat flesh 
occasioned inconvenience, and I was frequently 
chid for my singularity. I made myself ac- 
quainted with Tryon's manner of preparing 



244 UE DIGESTION. 

some of his dishes, such as boiling potatoes, 
rice, making puddings, and then proposed to 
my brother that if he would give me weekly 
one-half the money he paid for my board I 
would board myself. He agreed to this, and I 
found I could save one-half of what he paid 
me. This was a fund for buying books. But 
I had another advantage. My brother and the 
rest, going for their dinner, left me alone, and, 
quickly despatching my light dinner, which 
was often no more than a biscuit or slid of 
bread, a handful of raisins and a glass of 
water, I had the rest of the time fur study, in 
which I made greater | 38 fr >m the clear- 

ness of head and quicker apprehension which 
attends temperance in eating and drinking." 

Again I am reminded of the question con- 
stantly asked by honest, earnest inquirers, 
"Well, after all, what is temperance V 
Not long since, a young man called upon me, 
with numberless aches and distresses. He was 
dizzy and half sick in the morning, sleepy 
after dinner, and restless at night. He had 
constipation and pain in the back, sour eructa- 
tions, and sense of heat at the pit of the stom- 
ach. But, worse than all this, he had desperate 
hypochondria. Without referring to my record 
of cases, I cannot give full particulars of his 
case : but I remember he told me that he had 



INTERESTING HISTORICAL FACTS. 245 

been doctoring for a year, had taken several 
boxes of pills, quantities of tonics, and had 
recently been trying a famous dyspepsia rem- 
edy. He had now given up all hope, and only 
wished he was dead. I asked him about his 
habits. 

He replied, " Oh, they are the very best. I 
have read several works on health, and have 
given the most careful attention to health 
rules. I bathe and walk several miles every 
day." 

I asked him about his diet. 

" That is all right." 

" What do you eat for breakfast ?" 

"A bit of steak, just a few fried potatoes, a 
biscuit, a very few warm cakes and a single cup 
of coffee. Cold water makes me sick." 

" Do you drink the coffee strong ?" 

" Yes, just comfortable. I don't like slops." 

" Well, sir, what for dinner ?" 

" I take a plate of soup, a trifle of fish, just 
a little roast beef, a very few vegetables and a 
bit of pie or pudding." • 

" Well, what for supper ?" 

"A very little cold roast, a biscuit or two 
and a cup of tea." 

" Do you take the tea strong ?" 

" Yes. I don't like slops." 

" Is this all you eat ?" 

21* 



246 OUR DIGESTION. 

"Sometimes, when I feel a little faint, I 
lunch on a few crackers and a glass of ale. I 
am very temperate and careful in all my habits. 
I know with my stomach I must be so." 

I said to him, " My dear fellow, if you will 
stop your drugs and stuffing, and eat only what 
I advise, you will get well." 

"But, Doctor, will you starve me on bran 
bread?" 

"Not a bit of it; I will prescribe food for 
you that will make you stronger by half in a 
month. 

"Your diet must be the following: A piece 
of unleavened cracked-wheat bread, about 
large as your hand, with a baked apple, for 
breakfast; twice as much bread of the same sort 
for dinner, with a saucer of cracked wheat and 
milk and two or three baked apples. Eat 
nothing for supper, and go to bed at eight 
o'clock. In a month you will be somewhat 
thinner than now, but you will be cured of 
your horrors, of your acidity of stomach, of 
constipation, and feel yourself a new man." 

" But, Doctor, how am I to sit at the table 
and see all the good things before me, and eat 
nothing but bread and apples ?" 

"It is a little hard at first, but you will - 
really enjoy the self-denial, and pity those who 
are stuffing and killing themselves." 



OUB BOARDING-HOUSES. 247 

" But," asked my patient, " don't you think 
there is some medicine I could take and get 
well without resorting to such terrible starva- 
tion as this ?" 

" You are quite mistaken. It is not starva- 
tion. The amount of food I have advised is 
as much and as rich as your stomach can digest 
at present ; and you must remember that it is 
not the quantity of food you eat that deter- 
mines the strength : it is the amount well di- 
gested. One ounce well digested will give you 
more strength than ten ounces which undergo 
the morbid changes of the dyspeptic stomach." 

There is hardly a day that I do not have a 
similar conversation with some poor gorman- 
dizer. As I have said, these poor creatures 
take bitters, pills and doses, resort to the gym- 
nasium, make journeys to the country, are will- 
ing to do and suffer anything you can name, 
except one — the simple and only thing that 
will cure them — viz., eating plain food in mod- 
erate quantities. 

Our Boarding-Houses. 

A few years ago I was one of seven boarders 
in what is called a first-class boarding-house. 
Beside my wife and self, I do not think any 
one of the company was quite well. The Eng- 
lish gentleman who sat at my left was a great 



248 OUR DIGESTION. 

sufferer from vertigo, and was in constant ap- 
prehension of apoplexy. His excellent wife 
was afflicted with an unseemly eruption of the 
face and periodical headache. Farther down 
sat a pale, elegant gentleman, whose descriptions 
of his sufferings from dyspepsia were painful to 
hear. His sister, who sat at his side, used to 
say that her brother thought his dyspepsia a 
terrible affair, but if he could bear for a single 
hour the agonies of her indigestion, he would be 
thankful to return to his own sufferings. Both 
were afflicted with a hard, deep cough. Our 
remaining boarder was a young fellow who spent 
his two thousand a year on his appetites, and 
suffered greatly from what is called " bilioud- 
ness." 

"We had three or four courses at dinner, and, 
unless in the midst of a "bad turn? each one 
of the five faced the enemy like veterans, never 
flinching until the foe was slain. 

I was moved to speak on the vsubjeet of hu- 
man food. The discussion grew warm. My 
English friend knew; he had tried the starving 
plan. It might be good for some folks, but it 
would not do for him. His wife had tried 
brown bread, and her face had grown worse all 
the time. 

But as a man who eats and drinks temper- 
ately can keep his temper, and as I had the 



OUR BOARDING-HOUSES. 249 

truth on my side, I carried the day, and 
induced all but our young sprig with the two 
thousand a year to try the new plan. Coffee 
and tea were thrown out ; we ate but twice a 
day ; no one ate more than I did — this was less 
than one-half their previous quantity — and all 
desserts, except a little fruit, were avoided. 

In less than two months the vertigo was gone, 
redness of face entirely gone, periodical head- 
ache much relieved, and the dyspepsia and cough 
non est inventus. They could hardly believe it. 
Was it possible that all their lives they had 
been eating twice as much as they could digest ? 

They labored in turn with our young sprig, 
but he invariably ended the argument with, " As 
long as the old governor comes down with the 
shiners I shall give the ponies full play." 

"What an abomination our hotel and board- 
ing-house tables are ! While returning from 
Europe in the Baltic, I picked up the bill of fare 
for the captain's dinner, and have it before me 
now. If the vile, indigestible French compounds 
were printed in this book, they would cover at 
least three pages. Think of it! On board 
ship ; no exercise ; nearly all except the crew 
more or less deranged in stomach with the mo- 
tion of the ship ; needing nothing but a little 
coarse bread-fruit and lemonade, and yet sit- 



250 OUR DIGESTION. 

ting down to a table loaded with a hundred 
indescribable compounds, each swimming with 
grease ! No inconsiderable part of the suffer- 
ings from sea-sickness may be traced to this 
stupid and almost malicious management of the 
table. What company will inaugurate a new 
policy ? I shall soon visit Europe again, and 
I will give fifty dollars additional passage-money 
for the pleasure of seeing the company sit down 
to plain, coarse bread, delicious fruits and cool 
lemonade. 



EXERCISE BEFORE BREAKFAST. 251 



EXERCISE BEFORE BREAKFAST. 



Last autumn a robust gentleman of fifty 
years and two hundred pounds brought his 
frail, dyspeptic wife for some advice. 

In the course of a long conversation, I asked 
her whether she could exercise before break- 
fast. 

" No, and if I go out for a walk, which my 
husband constantly urges, it destroys my appe- 
tite, makes me faint, produces headache, and 
spoils me for all day." 

I saw the husband was incredulous, and 
asked him if he could exercise before break- 
fast. 

" I can walk five miles before breakfast, and 
when I come in I am as hungry as a wolf." 

And then he added in a tone intended to be 
kind and respectful, " I believe my wife could 
do the same thing, if she only could make up 
her mind to it." 

" But, my friend, don't you know there is a 
wide difference in the capacity of people to do 
this and that, a difference growing out of age, 
of health, strength, etc.? Don't you know 
that what agrees with the stomach, the nerves, 



252 OUR DIGESTION. 

the muscles of one, disagrees with the stom- 
ach, the nerves and the muscles of another ?" 

It was plain enough, though he nodded his 
head approvingly, that he still thought if bis 
wife only had his pluck she could join him in 
these morning sweats. 

Among what is known as the better cl< 
in America, not more than one woman in ten 
can take an early morning walk before break- 
fast with profit. And although I find that in 
my own case the early morning is the best time 
for work, both intellectual and physical, I have 
been compelled to admit, after the observations 
of many years, that there are many persons, 
and probably a large majority of women, who 
cannot avail themselves of what to me and 
many others is a luxury. 

During my student life in Paris, I watched 
with interest a habit of the French in the 
management of the first meal. When x\ 
rise they take a few mouthfuls of bread and 
coffee, upon which they go about their work, 
postponing the real, substantial breakiast until 
ten o'clock, or even later. I fell into this cus- 
tom, and found that for the early hospital 
rounds it was not bad ; and I have ever since 
thought it might prove a good system for our 
delicate American ladies. It would enable 
them to go out to ride or walk early in the 



EXERCISE BEFORE BREAKFAST. 253 

morning, and tlius give them a chance at the 
fresh air at an hour when fashion does not de- 
mand an elaborate dress. 

So very susceptible is the system early in 
the morning, before breakfast, that wise mili- 
tary commanders stationed in bad climates give 
their men breakfast before exposing them to 
the dew or early morning air. Sir George 
Ballingall, in speaking of the regiment quar- 
tered at Newcastle when the typhus fever was 
raging, says nothing contributed so much to 
arrest its ravages as giving the men an early 
breakfast of warm coffee. 

The same early breakfast before going out 
has been adopted in new countries, particularly 
in malarious districts. 

As during the night the stomach and upper 
intestines become empty and weak from the 
function of digestion having been long com- 
pleted, and as the system has been drained by 
the rapid insensible perspiration during the 
night, which Sanctorius says is twice as rapid 
as during the day, the system is unsupported. 

I have long slept with open windows, at all 
seasons and in all climates. Away from home, 
I often find it difficult to procure the necessary 
extra blankets. When my covering has been 
insufficient, I find no difficulty until about day- 
light, when I am awakened by chilliness. 

22 



254 OUR DIGESTION. 

While at sea I have observed that if, uncom- 
fortable on account of the heat during the first 
hour after retiring, I have thrown off the bed- 
clothes, about daylight I have been sure to 
awaken with a sense of chilli nr 

When cholera is in the atmosphere, it most 
frequently makes its attacks about three or four 
o'clock in the morning. During those two 
seasons of the cholera, 1849 and 1851, 1 noticed 
that nearly all the genuine, quickly-fatal cases 
began early in the morning. At that hour the 
system is least defended against the enemy. 

I have never permitted myself to visit a pa- 
tient with any form of malignant or infectious 
disease early in the morning without first arm- 
ing myself with a warm breakfast 

Thousands of our New England women 
spoil their appetites for breakfast, and unfit 
themselves for the whole day, by working an 
hour over the hot stove before eating anything. 
If they would adopt the French custom of 
taking a few mouthfuls of bread and some 
warm drink on getting out of bed, it would 
prove a grateful support. Instead of spoiling 
the appetite for breakfast, it would increase it 
and give them a good start for the day. 1 have 
known a delicate woman to drink a cup of 
weak tea and eat a small slice of bread and 
butter, on rising, with great advantage. 



OUR RESERVOIR. 255 



OUR RESERVOIR. 



Sitting one evening near a reservoir, on the 
brow of a hill overlooking a European city, 
my companion, an eminent physician, told me 
this story : 

" About twenty years ago I was called early 
one morning to visit, in great haste, a family 
at whose house I had spent the previous even- 
ing. The messenger exclaimed, 'Oh, Doctor, 
come as quick as possible ; they are all vomit- 
ing themselves to death/ 

" I jumped into my clothes, seized my stom- 
ach-pump and ran. The doctors were flying 
in all directions. We cried out to each other, 
'poison/ poison/' and rushed on. I assure you, 
sir, the town was given up to the wildest ex- 
citement I have ever witnessed. All suffered 
with the same symptoms — vomiting, retching, 
thirst and burning pain. 

"At ten o'clock the Mayor called a few of 
us together for a moment's consultation. I had 
the honor to suggest that the poison must be in 
the water. 

"We ran up here, and right there in the 
corner, just under that tree, we' caught a 



256 OUE DIGESTION. 

glimpse of a large paper package, and rushing 
into the water, we hauled out more than ten 
pounds of the deadly poison, still undissolved." 

The Stomach is the reservoir from which 
every part of the body receives its supplies, 
and most of its diseases. 

Let us look out at this window. 

Do you see that man with a red nose ? That 
is produced by a poison which cornea from his 
reservoir. 

Notice that lady with the ugly eruption. 
The poison which produces that comes fi 
her stomach or reservoir. 

There, that line-looking gentleman, with a 
bad limp, has a big toe which is too big. I 
know him well. He insists that the moon is 
responsible for his gout, as his bad attacks 
come on at the full of the moon. Well, I tell 
him that the reservoir from which the poisi >n 
in his toe comes is somewhat like the moon in 
shape, and so he may not be so wide of the 
truth after all. 

But look at that fellow ! Did you ever see 
such a doleful face? That man has the blues 
fearfully; he wishes himself dead a hundred 
times a day. You see, his brain must receive 
its supplies from his stomach. But his stomach 
or reservoir furnishes not sweet, healthy chyme, 
but acids and poisonous gases. Of course his 



OUR RESERVOIR. 257 

brain gets poison instead of food. His face 
tells the whole story. 

If we were to stand here and see a hundred 
people pass, we should be able to determine the 
condition of their reservoirs. 

Ah ! there's a good one ! What a fine skin ! 
What a bright eye ! What an elastic step ! 
That young woman's reservoir is sending to her 
system nourishment and not poison. 

It cannot be repeated too often, nor in too 
many ways, that the stomach is the fountain 
from which every part of the body is supplied. 
If that is sick, then the brain, heart, lungs, 
liver, bowels, kidneys and spine must all be 
sick. The pain or other bad feeling may be 
all in one spot. It may be in the stomach it- 
self, or it may be in the brain, or spine, or in a 
rheumatic kink. It will be felt in the weakest 
place. The strain is alike in all parts — every 
link in the chain must bear the same strain, 
but only the weakest one gives way. 

You will ask me why, in one man, the weak 
place is in the eye, in another in the throat, in 
another in the joints, and so on? The reason 
is to be sought in inheritance and in personal 
habits. If your father overworked himself, 
and was careless in his dress and food, and thus 
became the victim of rheumatism, it is but 
reasonable that he should transmit to his off- 

22* 



258 OUR DIGESTION. 

spring a tendency to that malady. Now the 
joints and muscles are your weak place. When 
your stomach, from table and other abuses, falls 
into the habit of sending out poor, sickly nu- 
triment, you will probably become a rheumatic 
sufferer. There's the weak link in your chain, 
and that of course gives way first, 

I spoke of personal habits as determining 
the location and form of the malady. AVe are 
all familiar enough with this law. Your father, 
who produced his rheumatism by overwork and 
exposure, is a case in point. 

Again, the human body may be compared to 
a pond \wth a surrounding bank. This bank 
is not uniform in its strength. When for any 
reason the pressure of the contained water- 
increased, the bank will give way in its weak- 
est part. Just so in the case of the body. 
When the stomach sends out an amount of im- 
pure material too great to be borne, that part 
of the system which is weakest will give way. 

I know many men who from abuse of the 
stomach are the victims of headache. I have 
known many who had been suffering from 
periodical sick headache for years, and who 
have been cured by correcting some table error. 
In prescribing for sick headache, I find it ne- 
cessary to sit right down by my patient and 
go through with his table habits, step by step. 



OUR BESEEVOIE. 259 

A lame or stiff back is another common 
symptom of stomach derangement. Indeed, 
among Americans it is quite common to find 
that the spine is the weak place, and that when 
digestion fails, the back is first to give way. 

Perhaps the most common form in which 
imperfect digestion shows itself is in low spirits. 
That man is rare who with a good stomach is 
not cheerful and happy. But there is no man 
with brain so happily constituted that indiges- 
tion will not cast a dark shadow over him. 
The brain and stomach are in such active sym- 
pathy, that when the stomach is affected the 
brain must fall into depression. 

I see many cases in which the blood vessels 
of the face are particularly susceptible to 
stomach abuse. If a man abuses his stomach 
with brandy, the veins of his face give way, 
and he carries a tell-tale nose. But I see noses 
and cheeks and eyes showing a similar stomach 
trouble where the abuse is not with alcoholic 
stimulants, but with bad foods. 

People have the gout, and everybody is ready 
to declaim against high living. But where 
there is one man suffering from a gouty toe, 
there are fifty with inflamed corns and tender 
feet produced by similar table errors. 

In one word, if fifty men, high livers, among 
whom there are red noses, inflamed eyes, sore 



260 OUE DIGESTION. 

toes, headache, rheumatism, bad stomach, torpid 
liver, stiff back, low spirits, etc., etc., were to 
change their table habits and live on the right 
quantity of the best food, eaten at the right 
times and in the right manner, they would all 
probably be restored to health. The man with 
the red nose would exclaim : 

"Just look at this nose of mine! It's 
nice as any baby's nose. Who would have be- 
lieved that my nose was a flag of warnin 

While the man with a rheumatic shoulder 
would declare : 

"I am astonished to find that a month of 
strict temperance has cured me. I really can't 
see what the stomach has to do with the 
shoulder! I should as soon think of doctoring 
John Smith for his brother's rheumatism in 
California as doctoring my stomach for my 
shoulder. Isn't it funny? After this when a 
man has Canada thistles on one corner of his 
farm, he must go to the opposite corner and put 
on the salt to kill them." 

And the man with the gout would stamp his 
foot down hard, exclaiming : 

" Just listen to that, will you ? Why, fell 
if I go on this way, in another month I shall 
be the champion kicker. All glory to cracked 
wheat and boiled beef, say I." 

In brief, I do not know a bodily affection. 



OUR RESERVOIR. 261 

nor a mental or moral affection, which might 
not be cured or relieved by a wise management 
of the table. It is inconceivable, the ignorance 
of people about their food. Not one man in 
ten knows anything about it beyond the fact 
that certain things taste good, and certain 
other things do not taste good. A great many 
people can tell you all about the food best for 
swine, just what will develop the largest bones 
in them, just what will contribute most to this 
and that quality ; but when they come to the 
food out of which their own brains and muscles 
are developed, they only know that some things 
taste good and others do not. That the aver- 
age man can quadruple his force and enjoyment 
by a thoughtful management of his food is 
easily proved by an experiment. 



262 OUR DIGESTION. 



SYMPATHY BETWEEN THE STOMACH 
AND OTHER PARTS OP THE SYSTEM. 



There is a wonderful sympathy between the 
stomach and all other parts of the body. But 
that between the stomach and brain is so active 
and perfect, that the acutest physician is often 
greatly puzzled in trying to decide, when one is 
sick, whether it or the other is really to blame. 
Nothing is more common, for example, than 
to meet a long-standing case of dyspepsia! in 
which the prominent and almost the only 
symptom is a dull and fretting headache. 
While, as shown in another place, persons have 
suffered many years from what they believed to 
be a serious disease of the stomach, declaring 
that "When I am dead you will find my stom- 
ach one mass of cancer ;" but when the curi- 
ous medical man makes an examination, he 
finds a healthy stomach, better than the average, 
because of an abstemious diet ; but in the brain 
lie comes upon evidence of long-standing and 
serious disease. 

The sympathy between the brain and stom- 
ach is so complete, that an experienced physi- 
cian never examines a case of disease of one 



INFL UENCE OF JD YSFEFSIA ON THE MIND. 263 

of these organs without making the other one 
likewise the subject of careful study. 



Influence of Dyspepsia on the Mind. 

I can recall many curious conversations with 
dyspeptics. No matter how recent the attack, 
they generally fancy themselves very, very ill. 
The following is a sample office scene : 

Dyspeptic. " Doctor, I want to consult you 
about my health." (A very solemn face and 
a whining voice.) " I am really alarmed, for 
I have just found out that I have the heart 
disease." 

Doctor. " How long have you had this heart 
disease ?" 

Dyspeptic. " It has been gradually coming 
on ; but I never felt it seriously till about a 
week ago. Doctor, do you really think there 
is any danger of my falling down dead ? I 
was afraid, in coming up stairs just now, that I 
might fall down a dead man. What will my 
poor wife do ? I ought to have ten thousand 
dollars more in some good company. But then, 
it is too late now, they wouldn't take me, unless 
'twas in some of these humbug companies. 
Why don't men attend to such things in sea- 
son ?" 

Doctor. " Please take off your coat and vest 



264 OTJE DIGESTION. 

and let me examine your heart." (Doctor lis- 
tens for some time.) " Now tell me just how 
it feels." 

Dyspeptic. " Why, sir, there is a pain, and 
a sinking, and then I feel as if my heart would 
jump out of my mouth. I can't tell you what 
an awful sensation it is." 

Doctor. " There is nothing whatever the 
matter with your heart beyond a little sym- 
pathy with a deranged stomach. If you omit 
your coffee, and go without your supper, in a 
week you will get over this dreadful, fatal dis- 
ease of the heart ; and then it will not come on 
again if you will only eat and drink as you 
should." 

Dyspeptic. " Do you mean to say that, with 
all these terrible symptoms of the heart, there 
is nothing the matter with it? Doctor, you 
must excuse me, but I can't believe it." 

Doctor. " I will give you my head for a foot- 
ball if all these terrible symptoms do not disap- 
pear entirely within five days, with the slight 
change in your table habits which I have 
suggested. There, now, behave yourself, and 
your fatal disease will leave you within a 
Week." 

While the dyspeptic fancies he is fearfully 
sick, and is determined to die, the consumptive, 
who may have extensive destruction of the lung 



INFL UENCE OF D YSPEPSIA ON THE MIND. 265 

which will end in the grave, is almost sure to 
be cheerful and. hopeful. The following is 
common : 

Consumptive. " Perhaps, Doctor, you had 
better listen at my chest a little. The fact is, 
I do cough some, but my wife is always in a 
worry about something, you know, and she has 
got it into her silly head that I have some 
trouble here. So I reckon you had better make 
a little examination — -just enough to satisfy her, 
you know." 

Doctor. "Well, you must strip your chest 
so as to give me a good chance.' ' After listen- 
ing, the Doctor says, * You have incurable con- 
sumption. I find a mass of tubercle there* and 
here, and can only say that by no treatment 
can you be restored. Let me count your pulse. 
Yes, that tells the same story." 

Consumptive. " But, Doctor — now, really — 
you don't mean to say that I have consump- 
tion r 

Doctor. " Yes, my dear fellow, there is not 
a shadow of doubt about it." 

Consumptive. " Upon my word, I shouldn't 
have dreamed of it; and you mustn't be of- 
fended, but I really can't believe it." 

Despair is a common symptom of dyspepsia, 
and hope of pulmonary consumption. 

23 



266 OUR DIGESTION. 

A Sick Brain the Cause of Dyspepsia. 

Plutarch says, in one of his essays, " Should 
the body sue the mind before a court of judi- 
cature for damages, it would be found that the 
mind would prove to have been a ruinous 
tenant to its landlord." 

Abernethy, in discussing the causes of indi- 
gestion, says: "The state of their minds is 
another grand cause — the fidgeting and dis- 
contenting themselves about what can't be 
helped — passions of all kinds — malignant pas- 
sions — pressing upon the mind disturb the cere- 
bral action, and do much harm." 

Dr. Parry says, " Dyspepsia may be pro- 
duced by mental affectioi 

Abernethy tells us that " There is no hurt of 
the head that does not affect the digestion.' 1 

Dr. Abercrombie, in discussing organic dis- 
eases of the brain, says that u Symptoms which 
really depend upon diseases of the brain are 
very apt to be referred to the stomach." Again, 
he says : " Many other cases of organic disease 
of the brain are on record in which the only 
morbid appearances were in the head, though 
some of the most prominent symptoms were 
felt in the stomach. Some of these resembled 
what has been called sick headache. Others 



A SICK BRAIN THE CA USE OF D YSPEPSIA. 267 

were chiefly distinguished by remarkable dis- 
turbances of the digestive functions." 

Then Dr. Abercrombie adds this caution: 
"In cases of this class we must beware of 
being misled in regard to the nature of the 
complaint, by observing that the symptoms in 
the stomach are alleviated by attention to regi- 
men, or by treatment directed to the stomach. 
If digestion be impeded, from whatever cause, 
these uneasy symptoms in the stomach may be 
alleviated by great attention to diet; but no 
inference can be drawn from this source in 
regard to the cause of the derangement." 

Dr. Hastings, in the Midland Medical and 
Surgical Register of 1813, says that not un- 
frequently cases occur which exhibit symptoms 
of disordered stomach, accompanied by in- 
creased determination of the blood to the 
head, alternate flushing and coldness, irregular 
spirits, etc.; and he states that, in all cases 
which terminated fatally under his care, he 
found thickening of the membranes of the 
brain and marks of chronic inflammation in 
the head. Dr. Hastings believes that many 
of the nervous symptoms of which dyspeptic 
persons complain are produced by some alter- 
ation of the membranes of the brain, in conse- 
quence of chronic inflammation. 

Dr. Paris relates a case of a lady who had 



268 OTJR DIGESTION. 

been unwell for several years. She referred 
all her sufferings to the stomach, and often said 
that when she was dead that would he found 
the seat of her disorder. She died rather sud- 
denly, with fever and delirium, after exposure 
on a very hot day; and, on examining the 
body, no trace of disease appeared in the stom- 
ach and bowels, but the brain exhibited marks 
of long-standing disease. 

Dr. Brigham, to whose admirable work I am 
greatly indebted, but who, I think, pushes his 
views as to the part played by the brain in the 
production of dyspepsia much too for, u 
following language, which, in part at le 
every observing physician will endorse: 

"The fact that dyspepsia is frequently cu 
by permitting the over-tasked and tired brain 
to rest, or by changing the mental labor or 
excitement, is evidence that it is primarily a 
disease of the head and not of the stomach. 
How often do physicians fail to afford any 
relief by medicines in what arc called stom- 
ach affections, but which are readily cured by 
traveling, or relaxation in accustomed stud' 
and freedom from care and anxiety ; how often 
a change of the mental excitement affords re- 
lief. It seems as if certain portions of the 
brain, having become unduly excited, become 
diseased, and are benefited by strong excite- 



A SICK BRAIN THE CA USE OF D YSPEPSIA. 269 

ment of other portions of the same organ. 
How often are stomach affections cured by 
inert medicines, aided by the imagination, 
confidence, hope," etc. 

23* 



270 OUR DIGESTION. 



PREVENTION OP DISEASE. 



Probably the prevention of maladies "was 
scarcely thought of until about the time of 
Hippocrates, though the Egyptians attempted 
it by emetics, cathartics and freqin nt la-ting. 
We are told that the reason for all thi* 
"The greatest pari of the aliment we take in is 
superfluous, which superfluity is th 
all our distempers/ 3 

It is perhaps impossible now to determine 
who first recommended temperance and e\ 
cise as preventives of sickness and sources of 
health. After Pythagoras, locus, a ian 

of Tarentum, urged temperance and e.\ 
His own sobriety was bo remarkable that " The 
repast of Iccus" was, for a long time, a pr 
erbial phrase, 

Herodicus has been generally regarded as 
the inventor of this meansof preserving health. 
It is a curious fact that Plato censures him for 
thus keeping people of crazy constitutions a. 
to old age. Whereas Plato i . : that if a 
sick person did not soon recover strength, he 
had better die and be out of the way. PL 
believed that an infirm constitution was an i - 



PREVENTION OF DISEASE. 271 

stacle to virtue, " because such persons think of 
nothing but their own wretched carcasses/' for 
which reason he contended that iEsculapius 
should not undertake to patch up persons 
habitually complaining, lest they should beget 
children as useless as themselves, being per- 
suaded that it was an injury both to the com- 
munity and to the infirm person himself, that 
he should continue in the world, even though 
he were richer than Midas. 

So Herodotus relates that when any man 
fell sick among certain tribes, his next neigh- 
bor killed him directly, lest he should lose his 
flesh, and thus his body become unfit for food. 
So when any one of these people found himself 
indisposed, he withdrew privately into some 
distant place, with no one to take care of him. 
Ah, these were the golden days of which the 
poets dream ! 

Hippocrates made more important contribu- 
tions to the advancement of medical science 
than any other man in the history of our race. 
This remarkable man was born in Cos, an 
island in the Archipelago, about 858 b. c. He 
was a nobleman and a man of strict virtue and 
piety. His instructions seem to us now simple 
enough, but for the period in which he lived 
they were little short of miracles. 



272 OUR DIGESTION. 

The following constitute the more salient 
features of his instructions. 

He says : " In the winter, to resist the cold, 
let your food be dry and warming. In the 
spring, when the weather grows milder, the 
diet should be accommodated ta the season, and 
should be somewhat cooler and lighter. In 
summer, when the season becomes hot and dry, 
the food should be cool and the drink diluting. 
But after the autumnal equinox, your aliment 
should again be of a wanning nature, and your 
clothes thicker by degrees as you approach the 
winter. 

" It is of great moment to a man's health 
whether his common bread be white or brown, 
well or ill baked. 

"It is very injurious to health to take in 
more food than the constitution will bear, when, 
at the same time, one uses no exercise to carry 
oft' this excess. 

"A variety of foods, discordant in their 
nature, should not be indulged at one meal, 
because they make a disturbance and create 
wind in the bowels. 

" If they who have been accustomed to one 
meal a day should chance to eat two, they B( 
grow dull, heavy and thirsty. 

" Excess in drinking is not quite so bad as 
excess in eating. 



OTHER ANCIENT AUTHORITIES. 273 

"When the body is impure, or loaded with 
bad humors, the more you "nourish it the more 
you hurt it. 

" Mutton is good food for the delicate and for 
the robust. 

" Milk is hurtful to those whose bowels are 
subject to flatulency, or grumbling, and to those 
who complain of thirst, but good for the con- 
sumptive and emaciated, if they are free from 
fever and the above-named derangement of the 
digestive apparatus. 

"The healthy and strong may drink such 
water as comes in their way indiscriminately, 
but they who drink water for the recovery 
of health must be careful in the choice they 
make. The lightest, purest and softest waters 
are most fit for those who are apt to be costive, 
whereas the hardest waters do most service to 
those whose bowels are moist and phlegmatic. 
Hot temperaments receive benefit from drink- 
ing water. Water drinkers generally have 
keen appetites." 



Other Ancient Authorities. 

After Hippocrates, no other great light arose 
in medicine for several hundred years, though 
Polybus, a son-in-law of Hippocrates, Dioclese 
Carysteus, who lived near the coast of Greece, 



274 OUR DIGESTION. 

and Celsus, who lived in Tiberius' time, made 
some important contributions to the preserva- 
tion of health. Plutarch, though not a phy- 
sician, composed an elegant dialogue on the 
preservation of health. Agathinus, who was a 
contemporary with Plutarch, practiced physic 
at Rome, and is mentioned in several places by 
Galen. 

I think it will excite surprise that Agathinus 
wrote the following words : 

"Those who desire to pass through this 
transitory life with health should bathe them- 
selves frequently in cold water. I can scarce 
find words to express the benefit which people 
receive from this practice, and even in extreme 
old age, cold bathing to such BS have 1> 
habituated to it will render the body firm and 
the countenance lively, will strengthen the ap- 
petite and assist concoctions." 

Galen was born in Lessor Asia, about a. d. 
131. He lived, by the practice of great tem- 
perance, until he was one hundred and forty 
years old, and was one of the most voluminous 
authors the world has ever seen. He says : — 

"I was born with an infirm constitution, 
and was afflicted in my youth with many and 
severe illnesses; but since I arrived at the 
twenty-eighth year of my age and knew that 
there were sure rules for preserving the health, 



OTHER ANCIENT AUTHORITIES. 275 

I have observed them so carefully that I have 
labored under no distemper since that time, 
except now and then a fever for one day, 
which my fatigue in attending the sick brought 
upon me. A man whose body is clear from 
every noxious humor that can hurt it, is in no 
danger of contracting any illness, except from 
external violence or infection ; and why may 
not proper care be taken to keep the body clear 
from all such noxious humors ?" 

Galen discussed what he called four articles 
with regard to the preservation of health : 

1st. Infancy. 

2d. Old age. 

3d. Difference of temperament ; and 

4th. The care necessary to be taken by those 
persons whose time is not in their own power. 

1st. Infancy. New-born children should be 
fed with their mothers' milk only. Nurses 
should give them exercise in the cradle and in 
their rooms, and should be very watchful about 
the causes of their crying. They should be 
fed with milk until their front teeth are cut, 
then add bread and other forms of aliment. 
The mother should take great care about her 
diet, exercise and sleep, so that her milk may 
be good. 

2d. Old Age. Rubbing with the flesh brush 
is good for old people. It increases the motion 



276 OUR DIGESTION. 

of the blood, excites a gentle heat, and helps to 
distribute nourishment throughout the body. 
They should walk and have much gentle exer- 
cise, particularly such exercise as they have 
been accustomed to. Old people should avoid 
cheese, pork, eels and everything hard to di- 
gest. An old man's own experience must de- 
termine whether a milk diet be proper for him 
or not, since it is surprising to see what differ- 
ent effects it has on different constitutions. 

3d. Of Different Temperaments. Under 
this head Galen discusses nine temperaments — 
the hot, the cold, the moist, the dry, the hot 
and moist, the hot and dry, the cool and moist, 
the cool and dry, and then one which occupies 
a medium between all extremes, and which he 
calls the good or healthy temperament He 
makes many ingenious suggestions In regard to 
the management of diet , exercise, etc., in oon- 
nection with each of these various temper- 
aments ; but these suggestions are more curious 
than useful. 

4th. Of those whose time is not in th 
power. Under this head Galon advi- tea- 

men, students, and others whose employm< 
compel sedentary and other engrossing habits, 
to observe the following rules : — 

1st. After anv extraordinary mental exercise, 
they should live more abstemiously than usual. 



OTHER ANCIENT AUTHORITIES. 277 

He says of himself, that when at any time lie 
was fatigued and spent with business, he chose 
the most simple food he could think of. 

2d. That the common diet of such people 
should be plain and simple, and such as they 
can easily digest. 

3d. He advises that they should set apart 
some portion of their time for exercise every 
day, whatever their engagements may be. 

We cannot give more space to the writings 
of this remarkable man, though I cannot forego 
the pleasure of quoting the following words: 
" I beseech all persons who shall read this 
treatise, not to degrade themselves to the level 
of the brutes or the rabble, by gratifying their 
sloth, or by eating and drinking promiscuously 
whatever pleases their palates, or by indulging 
their appetites of every kind ; but, whether they 
understand physic or not, let them consult their 
reason and observe what agrees best with them." 

Hufeland and other German writers, Brous- 
sais and other French authors, but, more than 
any of them, the great Abernethy of England, 
have, among modern physicians, contributed to 
the dissemination of temperance in all things 
as a source of health and long life. 

England has given us a thousand volumes 
upon temperance as a condition of health and 
longevity. 

24 



278 OUR DIGESTION. 

Is it not an interesting fact that, while the 
treatment of disease by medical or other artifi- 
cial means has constantly changed, the means 
extolled to-day being condemned and ridiculed 
to-morrow, the thoughtful physicians of all 
time have agreed about the natural methods ? 
The most eminent men of every age have 
agreed, often in minute detail, about the em- 
ployment of temperance, sleep, cleanliness, sun- 
shine, cheerfulness, etc., etc., in the prevention 
and cure of disease. 

It is a noteworthy fact that the most distin- 
guished men of every age and of every school 
have, in the riper years of life, declared for the 
natural methods, and against the artificial meth- 
ods. Many of the most eminent might be 
quoted as leaving to the world, at their death, 
the testimony, that the world would be better 
off if there had never been a doctor — that cm 
the whole doctors had proved a curse. 

And yet there can be no doubt that if doc- 
tors would practice the natural methods, and 
teach the divine laws of health incidental to 
such methods, they would stand high above all 
other men in their beneficent services to their 
fellows. 



TREATMENT OF DISEASES. 279 



TREATMENT OP DISEASES. 



A man comes to me with Catarrh, and after 
going oyer his disagreeable feelings, concludes 
with, 

" And now, Doctor, can you help me? Can 
you cure me ?" 

"Yes, sir; nothing is easier! Or, rather, 
nothing is more certain (although it may take 
a little time) , provided you are willing to do 
what is needed." 

"Why, Doctor, I am willing to swallow a 
whole apothecary shop if I can get rid of this 
miserable concern." 

" My dear sir, medicines can do nothing for 
you ; squirting stuff into your nose won't help 
you (although, of course, you must keep your 
nose clean) ; there is only one thing to do, and 
that is, LIVE up staies !" 

" Live up stairs ? Why, Doctor, I do live up 
stairs now ! But what has that to do with it ?" 

" Everything, sir. If you will live up stairs 
I promise that you shall get well in three 
months." 

" Up how many flights ?" 

" Only one flight of seven steps. I will de- 
scribe them. 



280 OUR DIGESTION. 

"First Step. Eat wheat, oats, corn, fruits, 
beef and mutton, plainly cooked, in moderate 
quantity, and but two meals a day. 

"Second Step. Breathe good air day and 
night. 

"Third Step. Exercise freely in the open 
air. 

"Fourth Step. Retire early and rise early. 

"Fifth Step. Wear flannel next your skin 
every day of the year, and so dis] our 

dress that your limbs shall be kept warm. 
Bathe frequently. 

"Sixth Step. Live in the sunshine. Let 
your bedroom be one which receives a flood of 
light, and spend your days either out in the 
sunlight or in a room which is weD lighted. 

"Seventh Step. Cultivate a cheerful temper. 
Seek the society of jolly folks. Don't be afraid 
to laugh, 

"Go up this flight of stairs. Live above. 
Catarrh cannot crawl up there. Catarrh and 
other maladies are prowling about in the bae - 
nient, and cannot reach the floor above.'' 

Bronchitis. 

Here is a ease of Bronchitis. 
" Doctor," (in a hoarse voice,) " what can you 
do for me ? Can I be cured ? I have taken 



CONSUMPTION. 281 

eight bottles of Dr. 's Syrup, four bottles 

of Dr. 's Celebrated Pulmonic Balsam, 

five boxes of the Pulmonic Wafers, and lots of 
other stuff, and I am worse than ever! Can 
anything be done for me ? What do you think 
I had better take?" 

"If you will take the trouble to live up 
stairs, you will get well in three months." 



Consumption. 

But look at this poor, emaciated creature! 
Hear his hollow cough. 

" Oh, Doctor, can anything be done for me ? 
I have taken bottle after bottle of 'famous ' 
and ' sure ' cures for consumption, but I am no 
better. I have taken six bottles of pure cod- 
liver oil, and two gallons of Bourbon whisky, 
and I am worse and worse ! What do you 
think I had better take ?" 

"You poor, miserable victim, throw over- 
board all this quack swill, and crawl up stairs. 
I do not know till I have carefully examined 
your lungs how far the work of destruction 
has progressed, but all that can be done for you 
is to help you above. Empty your medicine 
chest, and ask the assistance of some good 
friend to help you into the story above." 

24* 



282 OUR DIGESTION. 

Rheumatism. 

But do you see this poor, limping fellow ? It 
is the rheumatism. If he will go up stairs and 
live he will get well, and stay well, as sure as 
the sun will rise to-morrow morning. I do not 
believe the rheumatism ever visits the story 
above. At any rate, I have never known in the 
whole course of my life a single person who lived 
habitually in the story above to suffer a twinge 
of rheumatism. If I could establish an Anti- 
Rheumatism Insurance Company I should be 
willing to agree to the following terms : 

First. The insured shall habitually live up 
stairs. 

Second. They shall pay into the treasury 
of the company, each, five dollars a year. 

Third. When one of the insured suffers 
from rheumatism, he shall receive from the 
company five dollars a day. 

I should want no better business than to fur- 
nish the capital for such a company. 

Dyspepsia. 

But look at this fellow now coming in ! 
There is no mistaking his case. Dyspepsia 
is written all over him. 

" Impossible ?" 



DISEASE IS NOT A THING. 283 

Not a bit of it ! If you will live up stairs 
you will be better in one week, and then will 
go on conquering and to conquer. 



Neuralgia. 

But here comes a pale, weary woman. Hot/ 
plain it is ! Night after night that poor crea- 
ture has walked her room in agony with those 
neuralgic pains. 

My poor friend, I pity you from the bottom 
of my heart. If you will leave your "chloral " 
and other stuffs, and find your way up stairs, 
in a month the color will begin to come back to 
your face, and if you will remain in that story, 
never coming down into the lower story for a 
single moment, your enemy will never find 
you again. 



Disease is not a Thing. 

People seem to think that disease is a sort of 
rat running about within the body, and that 
we must send in a " black-and-tan " to kill it. 

You wall hear them talk in this way : " My 
trouble was in my stomach ; the doctor gave me 
some stuff and drove it into my kidneys. Then 
he gave me another sort and drove it into my 
head. Now he is going to attack it there/' 



284 OUR DIGESTION. 

A Flag of Distress. 

A ship's crew is seized with some fearful 
malady. They hang out a flag of distr< 
Another ship passes near the infected vessel. 
Its captain discovers the flag of distress. A 
boat's crew is sent to cut it down. The cap- 
tain turns to his passengers with the triumph- 
ant exclamation, " We have saved them. All 
signs of distress have disappeared !" 

A human body is diseased in every part. A 
flag of distress is hung out in the form of an 
ulcer at the ankle. Some ignorant physician 
sees it. He covers it with a salve which com- 
pels it to close. Then he cries, " See, it is all 
gone !" 



Popular Treatment of Disease. 

A doctor sees a case of nasal catarrh, and he 
exclaims, " Now, here's a sick nose ! The man 
is well in every other respect, except tins square 
inch of surface in his nose ! That is very 
sick." And he proceeds to squirt sundry vile 
stuffs into that nose. He charges into the front 
end of it, and into the rear end. Now a red 
fluid dashes in ; now it is a black one ; again 
it is clear, and burns like fire, and anon scorch- 
ing powders. No spot on the field of Waterloo 



POPULAR TREATMENT OF DISEASES. 285 

was fought oyer with such desperate, fiery 
surgings as this inch in that man's nose. After 
infinite annoyance and disgust, to say nothing 
of the actual suffering, the patient finds the 
nasal discharge arrested, gives a flaming puff 
for the newspapers, and the next month begins 
his snuffling all over again. 

Possibly the doctor may have been honest 
and really thought the disease was in the man's 
nose. But if he is honest, he is a professional 
goose. 

The Catarrh is not a disease of the man's 
nose ! It's a disease of the man showing itself 
in his nose. You might as well doctor the 
stream down in the valley while the poison is 
distilling from the spring up on the hillside. 
You must doctor the man, and to cure him, 
you need do nothing more than to tell him : 
" Live up stairs !" 

If an ignorant doctor sees a gouty toe, he 
exclaims, " Here's a sick toe ! a very sick toe ! 
Ah, captain, that's an awful toe ! Here is a 
bottle of powerful medicine. You must apply 
it to the toe every hour." 

We should all cry out, "That fellow is a 
fool ! The disease is not in Mr. Jones' toe, it is 
in Mr. Jones. The medicine must be put on 
Mr. Jones, and not on Mr. Jones' toe." 

Let me prescribe a medicine for him, and I 



286 OUE DIGESTION. 

will cure him. My prescription would be the 
following : 

January 1, 1872. 

John Jones, Esq. 

My Dear Sir : 
I have examined your case carefully, and can 

promise you a certain cure. My prescription 

has never failed in such a case. Here it is : 
"Live up stairs." 

Yours, etc., . 

I might go on in the same way through the 
whole list of what are called local diseafi 
"When they can be cured at all, they are to be 
cured by the one prescription. 

The blood which is now in my brain is, be- 
fore I am done writing this sentence, back in 
my heart and off on a visit # to my feet> and 
now it is back in my heart again, and now it is 
distributed to liver, stomach, kidneys — every 
part. Every part of the body is every moment 
fed from the same blood. Every atom of every 
organ and tissue is obtained from that blood, and 
every minute all this blood comes back to the 
heart to be mixed and intermixed. 

Now do you suppose one part of the body 
can draw away from the rest, get up a disease, 
and carry on a little independent operation by 
itself, on its own responsibility ? 



ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE LAW. 287 

Illustrations of the Law. 

The history of the Crimean war furnishes 
striking illustrations of the dependence of the 
local upon the general. The English surgeons 
constantly observed that the wounded Rus- 
sians who fell into their hands recovered 
from wounds that almost uniformly killed 
Englishmen. It was not an unusual thing for 
a Russian with a minie-ball through his chest 
to get well. There w r ere thirteen such men cap- 
tured on a single day, all with great holes 
through their lungs from minie-balls. Of 
this number eight recovered. 

If the thirteen men had been Englishmen, 
the chances are fifty to one that they would all 
have died. 

Why this remarkable difference? The an- 
swer is in everybody's mouth — because the 
Russian has more constitutional vigor. 

One man gets a slight fall on the sidewalk ; 
it kills him. Another man falls from the roof 
of a five-story building ; it does not kill him. 

A beer-drinking English porter about the 
warehouses of London or Liverpool, although 
tremendous in appearance, has so destroyed his 
constitutional force by beer-drinking that a 
slight abrasion of the skin may kill him. 

I once knew an inebriate who had possessed 



288 OUR DIGESTION. 

during his long life a remarkably vigorous con- 
stitution, but who, by excessive whisky-drink- 
ing, had at length so destroyed his powers of 
resistance, that a very slight injury upon one 
of his knuckles was followed by an erysipelas 
which killed him. 

Two brothers, men of about forty, residing 
in New York, were builders. One had good 
habits, which were forced upon him in younger 
life by a scrofulous taint. The other, who had 
taken after his father, and had a remarkably 
clastic body, had indulged in gross intemper- 
ance. The two were engaged upon a building. 
The one with good habits was upon a Bcaffold 
at the fifth story, the other upon a scaffold at 
the first story. The upper Bcaffold gave way, 
fell, struck the one below, and they both came 
to the ground. Charles, who full from aloft, 
came down sixty feet and struck upon a pile of 
brick. Lawrence, who was upon the lower scaf- 
fold, fell only thirteen feet, and struck upon the 
same pile of brick. The one who fell from 
above had an arm so mangled that it had to be 
amputated at the shoulder, while one of his legs 
was broken in three places. In less than six 
months, with a good leg and an artificial arm, he 
was as busy and successful as ever. Lawrence 
received only a slight bruise on one hip, and a 
contusion of the cheek, and was able to get up 



ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE LAW. 289 

at once and help carry away his wounded and, 
as was feared, dying brother to the house ; but 
in four days Lawrence was a dead man. A 
malignant erysipelas attacked his face and car- 
ried him off. 

I dare not tell you how important I think it 
is that you should fully take in this idea — that 
the general is everything, the local nothing. 
Never till you comprehend this can you even 
make a fair start in these health investigations. 
And never will you be ready to make the ex- 
penditures which the duties of life involve, till 
you fully comprehend the importance of large 
deposits in the bank of constitutional health. 
Rich here, you are rich indeed. But if you 
keep no funds in this institution, you are so poor 
that you may well envy the poorest laborer who 
can digest his food. 

25 



290 OUR DIGESTION. 



! WEIGHT " IN THE STOMACH. 



I feequently meet a case of indigestion the 
most marked feature of which is what the pa- 
tient calls " weight in the stomach." Sometimes 
it is spoken of as pressure, and again as strict- 
ure; but the most common word is weight. 
Sometimes the patient will say, " It seems to me 
I have a stone or a mass of iron," and one lady 
said, the other day, " I have an iron wedge in 
my stomach." Generally these sufferers attri- 
bute the sensation to the weight of the food. 
A clergyman said, " I suppose my stomach has 
become sensitive to pressure, and the food press- 
ing upon the surface which has become so ten- 
der produces this sensation of weight." This 
explanation is entirely at fault. Instead of 
being produced by the presence of a heavy 
mass in the stomach, in its most intense and 
unbearable forms, I have found that it doe.- not 
appear in connection with a full meal, but is 
much more likely to come on after eating a few 
mouthfuls of cracker or fine flour bread, or a 
single hot biscuit. The patient may have 
ground it between his teeth with the greatest 
care, but, soon after swallowing, this sensation 



" WEIGHT" IN THE STOMACH. 291 

of weight appears.- More frequently, however, 
there seems to be no connection whatever with 
the presence of food in the stomach. The 
sensation is not produced so much by what is in 
the stomach as by certain conditions of the walls 
of the stomach itself; in brief, it is produced by 
congestion of the walls of the organ. Accom- 
panying this congestion, there is generally an 
adhesive mucus poured out, which sticks to the 
surface of the inner coat. I may add, that this 
sensation of weight is nearly always a little to 
the right of the pit of the stomach, and that 
it is found that the congestion and adhesive 
mucus, which seem to stand in the relation of 
cause to this sensation, are found at the right 
or pyloric extremity of the stomach. 

This sensation of weight is not relieved by 
stimulus. If it was produced by a load of 
food pressing upon the weakened walls of the 
stomach, a glass of whisky or wine would afford 
at least a temporary relief, whereas it is found 
that the employment of alcoholic drinks only in- 
creases the trouble. Indeed, drunkards suffer 
more intensely from this sensation of " weight in 
the stomach" than any other class of dyspeptics. 

The most striking relief, for the time being, 
is obtained from hot fomentations over the pit 
of the stomach. A mustard poultice applied 
over the stomach is very effectual. 



292 OUR DIGESTION. 

Weakness of the Stomach a Protection 
against other Maladies. 

Dyspeptics rarely have fevers or other acute 
affections. Most acute diseases take their rise 
from abuses of the stomach, and as the dyspep- 
tic cannot indulge in great table excesses, or 
cannot repeat such excesses, he is not likely to 
suffer from that inflamed condition of the solids 
and fluids which takes its rise in gluttony, and 
which constitutes the main-spring of acute 
diseases. 

If the stomach were to go on digesting all 
the food that a gluttonous appetite might de- 
mand, the whole system would soon be crowded 
with blood, and either a blood-vessel must give 
way or apoplexy must ensue. 

But a weak stomach stands guard against 
this danger. If too much food be taken, the 
stomach refuses to digest, pain supervenes, and 
the appetite gives way. 

So that dyspepsia is a safety-valve, and may 
be spoken of as one of the sources of longevity. 

Of course, it is of itself a weakness, but 
thousands die prematurely of acute diseases, 
who would if dyspeptic be unable to force the 
system into that feverish and inflamed condition 
which gives rise to acute forms of disease. 



BAD BREATH. 293 



BAD BREATH. 



I once met, on a Cunarder just leaving 
New York for Liverpool, a very beautiful and 
sweet-mannered lady, and congratulated my- 
self upon the happy accident which introduced 
me to her. I knew that two weeks' confine- 
ment to the narrow quarters of an ocean steamer 
was at best a dreary business, and I felt happy 
in the prospect of at least one pleasant com- 
panion. We met in the evening, and my first 
impressions were fully sustained. On the next 
evening we were singing, she at the piano, I 
standing behind her and looking over her 
shoulder. Soon I had occasion to lean for- 
ward to read the words, and, making some 
remark to me, she turned her face near 
mine 

I don't know any words that will do jus- 
tice to the case. From that moment I could 
not look at her, or even think of her, without 
smelling that breath and turning away with 
disgust. The odor was obviously an elaborate 
compound — that of a putrescent corpse was one 
of the ingredients. Think of it — a corpse 
smiling, singing and walking about among 

25* 



294 OUB DIGESTION. 

folks! It is now about fourteen years since 
that voyage, and this morning, as I write 
these lines, that sickening odor comes back to 
me. 

I went to a party the other night, and dur- 
ing the evening asked our host to introduce 
me to that large, gray-headed gentleman (I 
have rather taken to large, gray-headed gen- 
tlemen of late : " Birds of a feather," etc.), and, 
after the white kids had been squeezed, we sat 
upon a sofa for a chat. A subject was intro- 
duced by my companion in which I had long 
been interested, and at once we waded in very 
deep. Becoming greatly interested, he drew 
near to me 

" Well, I suppose, sir," I said to him, " we 
should attend to the music, or they will think 
we don't understand the classical." Before the 
young lady was done executing the piano, I 
contrived to get as for away as possible. That 
conversation is so mixed up with that odor 
that, as I recall it now, it smells bad. I cannot 
even think of that gentleman without exciting 
that part of the imagination which resides in 
my nose. 

If you enter a room in which there is an un- 
pleasant odor, your first impulse is to escape ; 
and if you enter into conversation with a per- 
son whose breath is bad, your first impulse is 



WHAT CAUSES BAD BREATH* 295 

to get away. Many a woman lias lived and 
died unmarried, because no man with a nose 
could get near enough to pop the question. 



What are the Causes of Bad Breath? 

Most persons think that a bad breath comes 
from the stomach : that the stomach, being out 
of order, sends up an impure something which 
escapes in the breath. This is impossible. A 
bad breath never comes from the stomach. 
Nothing ever comes upward except in vomit- 
ing and eructations of wind. There is no open 
passage through which an odor can rise to the 
mouth. The passage into the stomach from 
above is always perfectly closed, except at the 
moment when something is entering, and even 
then there is no chance for an odor to escape 
from the stomach upward. The oesophagus or 
meat-pipe closes upon the thing passing down, 
and grasps it all the way, from the upper to 
the lower end. For example, a whole chestnut 
passes down the oesophagus. The moment it 
enters the upper end of the passage, the walls 
of the passage grasp the nut and squeeze it 
from above so tight as to force it down. The 
part of the canal immediately above the chest- 
nut, all the way down, is so tightly closed upon 
the nut that the squeezing presses it on until 



296 OUR DIGESTION. 

it is forced into the stomach. Whenever there 
is nothing in the passage it remains shut ; the 
sides are pressed together; nothing whatever 
can escape from the stomach up through it. 
And, even in vomiting, it is very difficult to 
force solid matter upward. In most persons, 
it requires a tremendous effort to get any- 
thing up. And yet, strange to say, most per- 
sons imagine the passage to be an open pipe, 
through which bad odors may constantly pass 
up, and escape in the breath. I repeat, that 
the passage to the stomach is, except when 
something is passing down, perfectly closed, 
and even then it is only open where the mass 
is, while above and below it the walls of the 
passage are closely pressed against each other. 
A bad breath never comes directly up from 
the stomach. 

Sources of Bad Breath. 

There are three of them : 

1. The mouth. 

2. The nose. 

3. The lungs. 

Of twenty cases of bad breath, I estimate 
that fifteen come from the mouth, one from 
the nose and four from the lungs. 

As generally when the mouth is at fault the 
lungs contribute something to the odor, the 



SOURCES OF BAD BREATH. 297 

above definite classification is probably too pre- 
cise; but I think it a close approximation to 
the truth. 

The Mouth. — I need hardly argue that rot- 
ten teeth and diseased gums may produce a bad 
breath. I have but rarely met a case in which 
the teeth were white and the gums healthy. In 
every case of bad breath, the mouth is to be 
suspected and examined. In a majority of 
cases, you smell nothing while the patient 
keeps his mouth shut and breathes through his 
nose ; but as soon as he begins to speak, then 
it comes. 

That man must go at once to the dentist. 
He is the doctor for the mouth. He will re- 
move every cause of offence from that cavity. 

The Nose. — The various forms of catarrh are 
more or less productive of bad odors. Ozena, 
which is the worst form of catarrh, produces a 
peculiar and sickening odor. 

The cure of this malady is somewhat diffi- 
cult, but the odor arising from it can be mit- 
igated by a thorough cleansing of the nose with 
water, or soap and water, several times a day. 
But a cure should be sought ; and let it not be 
sought at the hands of one of the advertising 
catarrh quacks. 

The Lungs. — A man eats and drinks, say, 
five pounds in a day. Now, unless he is gain- 



298 OUR DIGESTION. 

ing weight, lie must part with five pounds. If 
we place on the scales all that comes from his 
bowels and bladder, we shall find it weighs, say, 
one pound and a half. Three pounds and a 
half have left the body in some other way or 
other ways. These other ways are the skin and 
lungs. By far the larger part should escape 
through the skin. Sometimes the millions of 
holes in the skin, through which this worn-out, 
effete matter should escape, become in part 
closed from lack of bathing and perspiration, 
and this effete matter cannot escape freely in 
that way. But the poisonous stuff must be 
gotten rid of in some way. Now the lungs 
come in to supplement the skin. To a certain 
extent the lungs and skin are ever ready to 
substitute for each other. If the lungs for any 
reason leave a small part of their duty undone, 
the skin at once steps in to assist. If the skin 
fails to accomplish its whole task of the work 
of excretion, the lungs are ever ready to assist 
in working off the impurities. But, whenever 
the lungs are obliged to perform this extra ser- 
vice, they cannot do it as well as the skin. 
They are obliged to work off impurities which 
do not belong to their department, and so 
they take on a morbid condition, and the ex- 
cretions are so changed in character as to 
become offensive. 



SOURCES OF BAD BREATH. 299 

Three persons out of every four whose bad 
breath comes from their lungs can cure them- 
selves, or greatly mitigate the nuisance, by 
washing themselves all over with strong soap 
and water, and following this by the vigorous 
use of rough towels every day for a month, and 
exercising at least once a day till there is free 
perspiration. By this time, the impurities 
which should escape through the skin have 
free escape in their natural course, the lungs 
return to their own proper work, and the dis- 
agreeable odor disappears. 

Let us review. In twenty cases of bad 
breath, fifteen cases come from the mouth. 
The dentist will remove all that trouble. 

One case from nasal catarrh. Use a syringe 
to cleanse the nasal passages several times a 
day, and cultivate a healthy stomach. If the 
stomach be rightly managed, catarrh generally 
disappears. 

Four cases come from the lungs. Open the 
skin by thorough bathing with soap and water, 
and by frequent perspiration, and the badness 
of breath which comes from the lungs will gen- 
erally disappear. 



300 OUR DIGESTION. 



WHAT WE MAT EXPECT. 



Foe twenty years temperance lecturers were 
less respectable than drunkards. Twenty years 
more, and we have made drinking disgraceful. 
Within the next twenty years drunkenness 
will disappear in the Northern States, from all 
classes above the lowest. 

Let no one lose heart. If he has a good 
cause, and his field is in the United States, he 
will win. 

Gluttony counts a hundred victims where 
drunkenness counts one. The movement is 
inaugurated, and I expect to live long enough 
to hear no more of " Whatsoever is set before 
you, eat, asking no questions for conscience' 
sake." I expect to see, within a score of years, 
as much interest among men in regard to the 
heal thf ulness of the food upon which their 
children live, as they now feel about the diet 
of their calves and pigs. As soon as they be- 
lieve that the food which then* children con- 
sume determines the character of their diges- 
tion and blood, we shall have a basis for opera- 
tions. But they don't believe it yet, and so 
you see the little folks eating at all hours 



WHAT WE MAY EXPECT. 301 

rich, indigestible food, and even in the cars you 
will often observe them munching cake and 
candy. 

Public sentiment uttered this edict : Lei no 
man speak against King Alcohol! Forty years 
pass, and we kick him into the street. The 
world learns but slowly, even from experience ; 
so now when we declare that the present sys- 
tem of food is one full of harm, we are con- 
fronted by the old, blind, stupid prejudice. 
They say, " None of your bran bread and moon- 
shine for me," and sometimes they go so far as 
to call us "reformers" a word hot with con- 
tempt. 

Here are thousands of pale, listless, indolent, 
unhappy young ladies, who might be changed 
in a few months into active, muscular, happy 
girls, by changing their dietary. 

Propose it, and you hear, not " Take a little 
wine for thy stomach's sake," but "Whatsoever 
is set before you, eat, asking no questions for 
conscience' sake." The reverence for author- 
ity among these people is really very touching. 
They quote the Scriptures with all that relig- 
ious awe formerly shown in quoting, " Servants, 
obey your masters." 

We are now ready for this great subject of 
food. We have long studied it in connection 
with the breeding and training of our domes- 

26 



302 OUR DIGESTION. 

tic animals. Now we are ready for the food of 
man. 

Science has taught nothing more distinctly 
than that certain foods feed the fat and leave 
the muscles and brain to starve. That certain 
other foods feed the muscles too exclusively, and 
certain others the brain. 

Our present familiarity with the composition 
of human foods, and their adaptation to our 
bodies, enables us to supply any deficiencies in 
our physiological life with the same certainty 
which marks the treatment of defective soils 
by the agriculturist. 

This food question is ten-fold more vital than 
the whisky question. It begins with the first 
day of our life, and links itself with the wel- 
fare of every human being every day of his 
life. I am not dreaming when I say that the 
wise solution of the food question will con- 
tribute immensely to that elevation of man 
which burdens every saintly prayer. 

I earned a reputation as a successful doctor. 
A very considerable part of that success came 
of what may be called the "Nutritive Cure." 
Thousands of people starve to death. For ex- 
ample, a large part of food among Americans 
is composed of white flour, sugar and butter. 
People who try to live upon such stuff grad- 
ually starve to death. These things furnish 



WHAT WE MAY EXPECT. 303 

food for fat and fuel for the lungs, but they 
fail to feed the brain, nerves, bones and mus- 
cles, and so these important parts starve. Not 
only does the brain become uncertain in its 
action, but headache and neuralgia are com- 
mon, the muscles become thin and weak, and, 
back of all this, the blood itself becomes so 
imperfect and poor that scrofula and other 
taints are developed. 



304 OUR DIGESTION. 



MYSTERIOUS PROVIDENCE. 



My friend P., a life-insurance agent, dropped 
in an hour ago and urged me to add twenty 
thousand dollars to my policies. 

In the course of our conversation he told me, 
as usual, of the man who had made up his 
mind to go in for ten thousand dollars, but put 
it off for a week till he should come in town 
again. In the mean time, of course, the man 
died. " And yet he was the healthiest looking 
man I ever saw/' said P., and then he added, 
" but that, you know, makes no difference ; the 
healthiest men are just as likely to die as the 
sickly ones." 

The common notion that our health and life 
depend upon a Mysterious Providence is not 
only mischievous and demoralizing, but it is 
downright infidelity. That man who stands by 
while ignorance and stupidity rule the hour, ex- 
claiming, " What a Mysterious Providence I" 
over a death by croup or fever, I pronounce an 
infidel, and a most mischievous one. 

When a party of thieving, reckless railroad 
directors devote themselves to watering stock 
and hoodwinking stockholders until a weak, 



MYSTERIOUS PROVIDENCE. 305 

worn-out rail gives way, and a train is hurled 
down a precipice, is there anything mysterious 
about it ? 

If a child goes out of a heated drawing-room 
with naked arms and legs, in pursuit of its 
daily supplies of candies, and then sickens of 
croup — when that child dies is it a Mysterious 
Providence ? 

If a man indulges himself until he develops 
gout, and the disease attacks his heart and 
kills him, is his death a mystery ? If he drink 
brandy till he dies in delirium tremens, is that 
mysterious ? 

I shall never forget a case which, during my 
boyhood, excited wide discussion among our 
people, and was more than once mentioned in 
our churches as an illustration of Providential 
interference. 

Two thieves broke into our neighbor's stable 
and stole two beautiful, high-bred mares. 
After riding the splendid creatures more than 
twenty miles they stopj)ed to cut some whips, 
but on resuming their flight, one of the mares, 
not relishing the whip, contrived to throw her 
rider and break his neck. 

The changes were rung on all the possible 
views of Providential interference. Now the 
fact in the case was this : the young man with 
the dislocated neck was not half so much of a 

26* 



306 OUR DIGESTION. 

rascal as his older companion, who got away 
" just as slick as a button ;" but the difficulty 
with the young man was, he was a poor rider 
and couldn't stick. The older companion (a 
great villain) was a good rider and he did 
stick. 

I remember another case which made an im- 
pression. A young scape-grace snatched a 
piece of mutton from a neighbor's table, and 
tried to swallow it without chewing. He 
was choked to death. The ignorant cried out 
that he was killed by a Mysterious Providence ; 
but the doctors found upon examination that it 
was not a Mysterious Providence that killed 
him, but a chunk of mutton. The mutton was 
bigger than the boy's swallow, and so it choked 
him. 

The lesson of the event was, not that " God 
moves in a mysterious way," but that people 
must not swallow big chunks of mutton. 

Perhaps no other error has done so much to 
destroy respect for God's law, and thus to de- 
stroy all true religious sentiment, as this blind 
superstition. How shall we show respect, rev- 
erence and love for God, but by a reverential 
study of, and obedience to, his laws ? 

But to return to mv friend, the insurance 
agent. 

He said, as you remember, " But that makes 



MYSTERIOUS PROVIDENCE. 307 

no difference, you know, for the healthiest men 
are just as likely to die as the sickly ones." I 
know nothing of the kind, and should be par- 
alyzed if I believed it. Not another hour 
would I give to the "Health of our Bodies" 
if I believed that life and health depend upon 
some Mysterious Providence. In fact, no one 
believes this doctrine, when it is sifted to the 
bottom. 

In our principal street there are three thou- 
sand buildings. Some are well built, others 
are shams, hardly strong enough to stand ; in 
fact, some of them do fall. 

Now, what would you think of a man who 
should go about saying, " But then, you know, 
that makes no difference, the strongest build- 
ings are just as likely to fall as the weakest" ? 

But I will not insult your common sense by 
arguing this point further. 

Our health and life are, practically speaking, 
placed by the Good Father in our own hands. 
A healthy man, with good habits, has a good 
lease for a long life. 

Let me select one hundred men, thirty years 
of age, and let me control their habits and oc- 
cupations, and I will insure their lives twenty 
years for a percentage which would be ridic- 
ulous compared with the previous rates. 



308 OUR DIGESTION. 

An Illustrative Anecdote. 

The nature of the common superstition 
about Providential interference is very aptly 
illustrated in an anecdote. 

A hard-shell Baptist minister, living some- 
where on the frontier of Missouri, was in the 
habit of saying, " Friends, you need not take 
any unusual care about your lives : the moment 
of your death was ' writ ' before the foundation 
of the world, and you cannot alter it." 

His wife noticed that when he left on Satur- 
day to meet one of his frontier missionary en- 
gagements, he dressed the flint of his rifle with 
unusual care, put in dry powder, fresh tow, and 
took every pains to make sure that the gun 
would go off in case he should come upon an 
Indian. 

It struck her one day as she saw him in the 
saddle, with his rifle on his shoulder, that his 
conduct contradicted his teachings, and she said 
to him, 

" My dear, why do you take this rifle with 
you? If it was 'writ' before the foundation 
of the world that you were to be killed during 
this trip by an Indian, that rifle won't prevent 
it; and if you are not to be killed, of course 
the rifle is unnecessary ; so why take it with 
you at all ?" 



AN ILLUSTRATIVE ANECDOTE, 309 

" Yes/' lie replied ; " to be sure, my dear ; of 
course, you are all yery right, and that is a 
proper yiew ; but, see here, my dear, you see — 
to be sure — but then — suppose I should meet 
an Indian while I am gone, and his time had 
come, and I hadn't my rifle with me, what 
would he do ? Yes, my dear, we must all con- 
tribute our part toward the fulfillment of the 
decrees of Providence." 

A boy takes to whisky, tobacco and profan- 
ity. No one is silly enough to speak of Mys- 
terious Providences. The vilest have too much 
respect for our Father to connect his revered 
name with such filth and vice. These are the 
vices of the boy ; and seeing this, we go to 
him, we exhort him to reform and become a 
decent, manly man. But if he resist all ap- 
peals, and at length his nervous system gives 
way, and he falls down dead in apoplexy, or 
paralysis, you will sometimes hear people talk 
of a Mysterious Providence, trying to cover up 
the mean, cowardly vices. 

In the name of truth, and for the sake of 
the living, let us cease this hypocrisy and blas- 
phemy over coffins filled with the victims of 
vice. Let not the name of the All-Good and 
All-Pure be associated with such shame. 



310 OVB DIGESTION. 

A Bad Lot. 

A large whisky distiller in Central New 
York had three sons, who assisted their father 
in his nefarious business. None but God will 
ever know the misery of which that distillery 
was the source. 

The distiller and his sons were among the 
victims. The father threw himself into a well 
in a fit of delirium tremens. The oldest son, 
during an attack, imagined his tongue a snake, 
drew it out, bit it off, and bled to death. The 
next son, while suffering the same horrible 
phrensy, threw himself into the well which 
received his father. The last one of the four, 
while driving a wagon load of whisky to his 
place in the country, pitched off his seat, was 
run over by the wagon and killed. I attended 
the funeral of this one, and while thousands of 
the poor women and children of the county 
were thanking God that the last of these 
wretches was gone, the minister, in a sanctimo- 
nious voice, spoke of that strange and mysteri- 
ous dispensation of Providence by which the 
> head of this household had been removed from 
the midst of his labors and loves ! 

Most devoutly do I believe in Christianity. 
I believe there is nothing else in this world 
worth living for ; but I should infinitely prefer 
to hear at a funeral the bald negations of a soul- 



A BAD LOT. 311 

less atheism, rather than the hypocritical cant 
and falsehood which I heard at that funeral. 

If the surviving friends in such a case do 
not wish the shameless life of the deceased to 
render its first genuine service by being shown 
up as a warning, then pray let them look to 
some one beside a minister of Christ to play a 
lying farce for them. 

What is needed is, that every one should feel 
his own individual, personal responsibility to 
God for his physical, intellectual, social, moral 
and religious conduct. 

If a man believes that everything comes of 
accident, or out of mystery — that, for example, 
sickness and premature death come of a Mys- 
terious Providence — his manhood is emascu- 
lated, and he becomes the creature of a weak 
superstition. 

Let us never give up the blessed faith that 
we have a Father in heaven who loves us and 
is ever ready to listen to our gratitude and peti- 
tions. Without this precious faith the world 
is a dark wilderness, with no ray of light, with 
no friend, with no hope. But let us realize if 
we thrust our hand in the fire, it will burn, or 
if we transgress any other law, physical or 
moral, we must suffer the penalty. Let us 
never impute to the Great All- Wise a foolish 
inconsistency with Himself. 



312 OUR DIGESTION. 



INFLUENCE OP IMAGINATION. 



I will confess to a little experiment which I 
made many years ago upon the imagination of 
a susceptible patient. The lady believed that 
her heart was falling down into her abdomen. 
She felt it just as plain as could be. At length 
it reached the very lowest part. Then I could 
put her off no longer. Something must be 
done. I gave her a vial of water, slightly col- 
ored with a little inert vegetable dye, and 
directed her to take thirty-three drops once in 
thirty-three minutes, and charged her to be 
particular about the time to a second. I prom- 
ised to call again at five minutes before three 
o'clock, and comparing watches I told her she 
might expect me exactly at the minute. I told 
her, in the most solemn and earnest way, that 
she might look for a peculiar crawling sensation 
in the abdomen, which would rise gradually till 
it reached the former position of the heart, and 
it would then pass off by peculiar flashes. I 
called precisely at the appointed time, and 
learned that the crawling had begun. She told 
me, her eyes overflowing with gratitude, that 
she could feel the heart working up after every 



INFLUENCE OF IMAGINATION 313 

dose of tlie medicine, I promised to call again 
at exactly twenty minutes past eight, and if, in 
the mean time, her heart began to rise too fast, 
she must send for me immediately. All went 
on well till near eight, when a messenger came 
bawling into my office : 

" Dochtor ! oh, dochtor dear ! come as quick 
as iver you can fly ! it's risin' too fast intirely !" 

I had increased the dose from thirty-three to 
forty-one drops at the three o'clock visit, and 
the effect had been marvellous. Indeed, it had 
been exactly what I had desired ; but the as- 
cension was now too rapid, and I must resort to 
a desperate expedient. I must put sixty-five 
drops on the outside to counteract the too pow- 
erful influence of the forty-one drops inside. 
I remained two hours to see her through. All 
went on wonderfully, and by ten o'clock the 
heart was in the right place, and the doctor had 
performed a miracle. A month later, and she 
told me, when paying her bill, that I might 
expect to be handsomely mentioned in her will. 
Indeed, this trick (I now think it was an un- 
worthy trick) secured me a gratitude which 
no truthful, common-sense management of her 
case could have won. 

I think even intelligent people do like a 
little mystery in their medical treatment. 

27 



314 OUE DIGESTION. 



ALCOHOLIC DRINKS. 



Men have swallowed alcohol for thousands 
of years. The drinks containing it have borne 
various names. Not less than three hundred 
drinks containing alcohol are sold to-day. 
They have a great variety of tastes, but they 
are all drunk for the alcohol they contain. 

Alcohol is a powerful poison. It matters 
little in what form it is drunk — whether under 
the name of wine, beer, gin or whisky — the 
effects are essentially the same. It is alcohol 
in every case, and alcohol produces certain 
effects upon brain, digestion and muscle. 

Given, the amount of alcohol in any drink, 
and the quantity of the drink, and given, a 
New England constitution, the effects upon 
the physical and mental health may be pretty 
accurately deduced. 

You hear people talk of "only sherry/' or 
"only lager beer." There is no doubt that 
sherry contains a great deal less alcohol than 
whisky, but if the whisky be diluted it is every 
bit as healthful as sherry. 

There are certain additions to the dilute al- 
cohol which are more or less pleasant to this 



ALCOHOLIC DRINKS. 315 

and that person, but the essential fact about 
every one of them is the percentage of alcohol. 
Milord, with his port costing five guineas a 
bottle, swallows essentially the same thing that 
Bill Sykes buys for twopence a horn. Bill, 
without doubt, gets some extra poisons in his 
tumbler, but they are a great deal milder and 
less hurtful than alcohol, so that any discus- 
sion about the extras is quite unnecessary. 

To put the subject in another form, all wines, 
beers, whiskies, gins, etc., etc., contain at least 
ninety-nine per cent, of alcohol and water. In 
some the proportion of alcohol is five and in 
others fifty per cent., more or less. The rest is 
water. To some drinks there is added one per 
cent., or a fraction of one per cent., of coloring 
and flavoring matter. The worst stuff sold in 
our lowest dens contains but a very small 
percentage of other poisons than alcohol. 



Adulterations. 

Lecturers and writers have filled the public 
ear with these " horrible adulterations." They 
tell us of camphene whisky, and of whisky 
that kills at thirty paces. There is no doubt 
that adulterating whisky is a vile trade. But 
I do not think it a particle viler than distilling 
pure whisky. I would quite as lief engage in 



316 OUR DIGESTION. 

one as the other. "With my convictions, I 
would oppose a law against the adulterating 
of alcoholic drinks while the distillation of 
what is called pure drinks is permitted. 

People make a great fuss about these adul- 
terations. They tell us that there is more 
champagne drunk in Xew York city in a 
week than is imported into the whole coun- 
try in a year. Suppose there is : I presume 
New Jersey cider will make as good cham- 
pagne, and pain without sham, as the vine- 
yards of France. If the Jersey French cham- 
pagne has twelve per cent, of alcohol, and the 
imported article has twelve per cent., it would 
turn out to be true that not only (if the bright 
label on the two bottles be the same) the most 
experienced connoisseurs cannot tell the differ- 
ence, but no metaphysician or physiologist 
could discriminate between the effects of the 
two. 

With this view of the case, few things are 
funnier than the long, grave discussions that 
you hear after dinner about the genuineness 
of the wines. 

"The fact of the business is," says Col. F., 
" gentlemen, the only way to protect ourselves 
is to deal with respectable houses; that's the 
only way. I tell you, gentlemen, that's the 
only way to save a man's insides." 



AD ULTEEATIONS. 31 7 

It is true, that these habitual tipplers, who 
give ten times as much attention to their wines 
as to their souls, cannot tell the difference 
between a bottle of champagne manufactured in 
New Jersey, and costing twenty-five cents, and 
a bottle of champagne coming from a famous 
vineyard in France, and costing five dol- 
lars. They can't tell the difference, for the 
simple reason that there is no difference. They 
contain, generally speaking, the same percent- 
age of alcohol, and after that the remaining 
differences are of little or no consequence. 

People mourn over the "horrible adultera- 
tions" of beer, whisky, brandy and other in- 
toxicating drinks. I confess that this temper- 
ance outcry has failed to impress me. The 
adulterating poisons are not worse than the 
alcohol. 

It is a curious philanthropy that tries to save 
a man who drinks alcohol from taking drinks 
which contain other and milder poisons. 

John Smith drinks alcohol which will pro- 
duce the most terrible effects, even delirium 
tremens, in which the maddened soul tears 
itself from the body with agonizing shrieks. 
These philanthropists cry out, " For God's sake, 
save the poor wretch from alum, gypsum and 
logw^ood ! Oh, let him have nothing but 
alcohol !" 

27* 



318 OUR DIGESTION. 

They demand laws against adulterations, and 
urge that " if we could only have pure liquors, 
the triumph of the temperance cause would be 
assured." These advocates of temperance tell 
you that if we could only have full supplies of 
California wine we should soon become a sober 
people. I venture the assertion, that the gen- 
eral introduction of the pure wines of Califor- 
nia among our people, would do for us exactly 
what they are doing for the people of Califor- 
nia. If we could generally believe that the 
wines, being pure, were healthful, there would 
be among us twenty victims of drink where we 
now have one. 

I am frequently asked to discuss, in our 
temperance conventions, the adulterations of 
liquors. I always answer that this aspect of 
the subject does not interest me, but that, on 
the contrary, I would multiply the adultera- 
tions until a glass of any of the intoxicating 
beverages should be pretty uniformly fatal. 

I suppose the temperance cause would need 
no further advocacy if every drink killed like 
a dose of prussic acid. Every approach to this 
is a help to the cause. 

There is no influence at work to-day in Cali- 
fornia which will do so much to undermine the 
health and morals of our brethren of the Pacific 
coast, as their unlimited supplies of pure wine. 



i 



ADULTERATIONS. 319 

A great deal of capital has been made out of 
the assumed fact that the people of Southern 
Europe (of France, for example) are more 
sober than the people of Great Britain and the 
United States. 

The people of warm climates are not grossly 
drunken. It is the people of cold climates who 
are the victims of this vice. But, notwithstand- 
ing it is true, as a rule, that the inhabitants of 
warm climates are free from the vice of drunk- 
enness, as a matter of fact the people of France 
are far from temperate. I have never resided 
in a city where intemperance was so nearly uni- 
versal as in Paris. All classes and both sexes 
are found among its votaries. I dined fifty times 
with French ladies and gentlemen, and I never 
heard but one lady refuse to drink wine, and 
she made an apology. I don't know how 
much that may mean to you, but to me it 
means everything. Why, if women had drunk 
in America as men have, we should have gone 
to ruin long ago. It is because our mothers, 
wives, sisters and daughters have refused drink, 
that we have escaped complete ruin. 

No, as a matter of fact, the people of South- 
ern Europe are far from sober. Intemperance 
of a moderate type is far more common than 
in this country or in Great Britain. 

In the North, a very large majority of the 



320 OUR DIGESTION. 

inhabitants drink no intoxicating beverages 
whatever. If we include women and children, 
I suppose that in the United States not more 
than two in a hundred use intoxicating bever- 
ages, while in France probably seventy-five 
in a hundred use them. This, in the aggre- 
gate, makes the nation far more intemperate 
than the people of New England. 

On this point, people frequently remark that 
our grandfathers had pure liquors, which they 
could drink constantly until old age, but now 
the whisky kills in a year. In part, this is the 
result of a change in our habits. Our grand- 
fathers lived and worked in the open air. AVe 
live and work in stove heat. They worked 
hard — chopping and digging. We sit and 
move our fingers. These changes in our hab- 
its have much more to do with the present 
quick work of rum than the change in the 
character of the drink. 

But suppose it were true that the present 
rapid destruction was the result of a change 
in the liquors. I can't see that it's a thing to 
be regretted. A man who keeps himself even 
moderately under the influence of the pur 
alcoholic stimulus is of little value to any mor- 
tal. He may do some useful work, but that is 
more than balanced by his mischievous exam- 
ple and his contribution to the weak nerves 



ADULTERATIONS. 321 

and consuming appetites of the unhappy vic- 
tims who will call him father. It is my con- 
viction that the sudden removal from this life 
of all habitual drinkers would be a great bless- 
ing to the world. Therefore I cannot take 
any interest in the movement which promises 
purer liquors. I would not injure any human 
being, and I feel especially tender toward the 
victims of appetite, and trust that my life has 
shown that this interest has been expressed in 
many ways other than words, but nevertheless 
I should acquiesce without complaining in any 
"Mysterious Providence" that should remove 
all the drinkers of alcoholic stimulants. I 
certainly would not turn my hand over to 
change the drinks so that they would last 
longer. How can anybody wish to protract 
their lives? 

The adulterators are doing more for the 
cause of temperance, five to one, than the 
temperance lecturers and writers, and I for 
one wish them prosperity. 



322 OUR DIGESTION. 

Testimony against Alcohol. 

Alcohol is not only an enemy to mental and 
moral health, but is such a deadly enemy to the 
body, that no ambitious trainer of a prize- 
fighter will allow him to touch a teasj)oonful 
of it, even in the form of a pure wine. His 
own passion for drink may almost consume 
him, while he would curse the temperance man 
as a fanatical fool, but when preparing his man 
for the " ring" he insists upon total abstinence. 
I happened to be present once when a conversa- 
tion on this point occurred between a famous 
fighter and his trainer. The bully suggested 
that a spoonful of whisky would certainly do 
no harm. 

" Well," said Mac, " go ahead ; down with 
your whisky, but you can just get another 
trainer. You don't catch me disgracing my- 
self. You know, John, that I believe in whisky 
as much as any man. I just lay right to it, 
and, when you get through with this thing, 
you can have a regular blow-out ; but while we 
fc are fixing for the mill, not one drop of the stuff 
goes down vour grizzle, my bov. You see, 
John, I'll drink a double dose: every other 
glass for you. But you can't toddy your whis- 
tle till after the twenty-third." 

What is true of prize-fighters is true of all 



TESTIMONY AGAINST ALCOHOL. 323 

classes of men fitting themselves for great 
physical exertion. 

Go and ask those young fellows who are 
training for a hundred-mile walk or for an 
international boat race. It's the same story 
over again : not one drop of any alcoholic 
stimulus. 

I have a score of times talked with men 
interested in these great matches — prize-fights, 
boat-races, pedestrian struggles, etc. — and have 
frequently wished that some intelligent friends 
of mine who think whisky healthful could 
hear their statements and explanations. 

I asked the most remarkable pedestrian 
that we have seen in America, when he was 
trying to walk a hundred^ miles in twenty-two 
hours, why he did not take a little stimulus 
during the last few miles. At length there 
were forty minutes left and five miles to go. It 
was pretty evident that he would fail. I am 
ashamed to say that I really worked myself 
into a fever of interest in his success. He came 
out into the dressing-room for one minute, and 
I exclaimed : 

" You will fail ; nothing can save you." 

He was pale, trembling and ready to faint, 
and I honestly thought that in such an emer- 
gency a small glass of spirits might revive and 
help him through. 



324 OUR DIGESTION. 

He replied, doubling his fists with a desper- 
ate energy, " I shall not fail ; but if I swallow 
a spoonful of whisky I am lost." 

Alcohol is a poison to prize-fighters, to boat- 
racers, to pedestrians, to students, to young, to 
old, to men, women and children, to sailors in 
the Arctic regions, to soldiers in India, to every 
human being, under every possible circum- 
stance. 



Beaumont's Experiments upon St. Martin. 

Dr. Beaumont, after experimenting upon St. 
Martin's stomach, gives the effect of alcoholic 
liquors as follows : 

Stomach not healthy ; some inflammation and 
patches of ulcers. 

July 28, 1833.— St. Martin has been drink- 
ing ardent spirits pretty freely ; complains of no 
pain and shows no symptoms of indisposition ; 
says he feels well and has a good appetite. 

Aug. 1. — Inner membrane of the stomach 
morbid ; considerable inflammation and ulcera- 
tion on the exposed surface ; secretions vitiated. 

Aug. 3. — Inner membrane of stomach un- 
usually morbid; the inflammatory appearance 
more extensive and spots more livid than 
usual, from the surface of which exuded small 
drops of thick blood; the ulcers larger and 



BEAUMONT S EXPERIMENTS. 325 

more numerous; the mucus covering thicker 
than common, and the secretions much more 
vitiated. The gastric fluids extracted this 
morning were mixed with a large proportion 
of thick, ropy mucus, and considerable muco- 
purulent matter slightly tinged with blood, 
resembling the discharge from the bowels in 
some cases of chronic dysentery. 

Dr. Beaumont says, "St. Martin complains 
of no symptoms indicating any general derange- 
ment of the system, except an uneasy sensation 
and a tenderness at the pit of the stomach, and 
some vertigo, with dimness and yellowness of 
vision on stooping down and rising again ; has 
a thin, yellowish brown coat on his tongue, and 
his countenance rather sallow; pulse uniform 
and regular ; appetite good ; rests quietly, and 
sleeps as well as usual." 

By the 6th of August the stomach had re- 
covered its original appearance — no alcoholic 
liquors were allowed — the patient was kept on 
a low diet. He adds, " The free use of ardent 
spirits, wine, beer, or any intoxicating liquor, 
when continued for some days, has invariably 
produced these morbid changes." 

Dr. Carpenter says, " The drunkard not only 
injures and enfeebles his own nervous system, 
but entails mental diseases upon his family." 

Dr. Howe, in a Report on Idiocy before the 

28 



326 OUR DIGESTION. 

Legislature, said, " The habits of the parents of 
three hundred of the idiots were learned, and 
a hundred and forty-five, or nearly one half, 
are reported as known to be habitual drunk- 
ards. Such parents, it is affirmed, give a weak 
and lax constitution to their children, who are 
consequently deficient in bodily and vital en- 
ergy, and predisposed by their very organiza- 
tion to have cravings for alcoholic stimulants. 
Many of these children are feeble, and live 
irregularly. Having a lower vitality, they feel 
the want of some stimulation. 

" If they pursue the course of their fathers, 
which they have more temptation to follow and 
less power to avoid than the children of the 
temperate, they add to their hereditary weak- 
ness, and increase the tendency to idiocy in 
their constitution, and this they leave to their 
children after them. 

"Seven idiotic children were born in one 
family, of parents who were drunkards." 



Other Effects of Alcohol. 

Root, the reformed inebriate, describes an 
attack of delirium tremens. 

"For three days I endured more agony than 
pen could describe, even were it guided by the 
hand of a Dante. 



OTHER EFFECTS OF ALCOHOL. 327 

" Who can tell the horrors of that terrible 
malady, aggravated as it is by the almost ever- 
abiding consciousness that it is self-sought ? 

" Hideous faces appeared on the walls, and on 
the ceiling, and on the floors ; foul things crept 
along the bed clothes, and glaring eyes peered 
into mine. I was at one time surrounded by 
millions of monstrous spiders, which crawled 
slowly, slowly over every limb, whilst beaded 
drops of perspiration would start to my brow, 
and my limbs would shiver until the bed rat- 
tled again. Strange lights would dance before 
my eyes, and then suddenly the very blackness 
of darkness would appall me by its dense 
gloom. All at once, while gazing at a fright- 
ful creation of my distempered mind, I seemed 
struck with sudden blindness. I knew a candle 
was burning in the room, but I could not see 
it, all was so pitchy dark. I lost the sense of 
feeling, too, for I endeavored to grasp my arm 
in one hand, but consciousness was gone. I 
put my hand to my side, my head, but felt 
nothing, and still I knew my limbs and frame 
were there. And then the scene would change. 
I was falling — falling swiftly as an arrow, far 
down into some terrible abyss; and so like 
reality was it, that as I fell I could see the 
rocky sides of the horrible shaft, where mock- 
ing, gibing, mowing, fiend-like forms were 



328 OTJR DIGESTION. 

perched ; and I could feel the air rushing past 
me, making my hair stream out by the force 
of the unwholesome blast. Then the paroxysm 
sometimes ceased for a few moments, and I would 
sink back on my pallet drenched with perspi- 
ration, utterly exhausted, and feeling a dreadful 
certainty of the renewal of my torments." 

Carpenter says : " The tendency of alcoholic 
liquors is to shorten life, either by increasing 
the susceptibility of the system to diseases or 
by directly causing others." 

Habitual drunkenness induces apoplexy, tre- 
mors, nervousness, paralysis, insanity, delirium 
tremens, and other horrible, acute forms of suf- 
fering. It also affects the digestive organs, pro- 
ducing dyspepsia, diarrhoea, dysentery, causes 
disturbances in the sexual functions, such as 
sterility, impotency, and even lesions of the 
kidneys, and dropsy. This is understood by 
life insurance companies, who refuse all per- 
sons of intemperate habits. 

Sickness and mortality j)roduced by alcohol 
are most common in tropical countries. 

During Sir John Moore's retreat at Corunna, 
the army was found to improve in health and 
vigor as soon as the usual allowance of spirits 
was withdrawn. This is particularly remark- 
able, since many of the circumstances were 
especially unfavorable. 






TEA AND COFFEE. 329 

Dr. Carpenter says : " Nutrition is unfavor- 
ably affected by intemperance." 

This is clearly seen in the comparative dif- 
ficulty to heal a wound or regain health which 
an intemperate man experiences. Hawkes- 
worth, in his voyage to New Zealand, mentions 
of the inhabitants " the rapidity with which 
wounds from musket-balls healed." And he 
further states, that " water was their sole and 
universal liquor." 

Carpenter goes on to say : " It is a fact per- 
fectly established by organic chemistry, that 
there is not the least relation of composition 
between alcohol and the muscular tissue ; there- 
fore, it cannot be nourished in any way by alco- 
hol. The nerve power is increased, but at a 
fearful expense to vitality." 

T8a and Coffee. 

Although the use of tea and coffee has been 
briefly considered in another part of this vol- 
ume, it occurs to me that in connection with 
what has been said on the subject of alcoholic 
drinks, it may be well to add something on the 
subject of tea and coffee. 

While I have no doubt that the very moder- 
ate use of both these drinks may, if used occa- 
sionally, and even regularly by aged people, be 
free from objection, there can be no doubt what- 

28* 



330 OUR DIGESTION. 

ever that the present enormous consumption of 
strong coffee and tea is the source of many 
maladies and much suffering. 

For example, three cases in every four of 
periodical sick headache will be cured by absti- 
nence from tea, while thousands of cases of full- 
ness of the head and palpitation of the heart 
will be cured by abandoning coffee. 

There is no doubt that the great mass of neu- 
ralgia and nervousness is either produced or 
aggravated by these drinks. 

It may interest my readers to know what 
several distinguished authorities have said in 
regard to these drinks. 

Dr. Trotter's opinion is, that the only cure 
for nervous maladies " lies in total abstinence 
from fermented liquors, tea, coffee and all 
other narcotics." 

Dr. Bell expressly says that " the effect of 
coffee upon the bowels and nervous system is 
most pernicious." 

Dr. Combe savs that " coffee, though it may 
increase our comforts for the time, exhausts 
in the end." 

Londe, a distinguished French writer, de- 
clares that " coffee should be used only in 
those circumstances in which spirituous liquors 
are admissible." 

Sinibaldi, an Italian medical author, makes 



A GOOD DBINK. 331 

the following statement : " Commerce with Asia 
has brought us a new drink (coffee), which has 
contributed strikingly to the destruction of our 
constitutions, producing debility, convulsions, 
palsy, vertigo and many other disorders." 

Mellingen declares that " Coffee produces 
fever, anxiety, palpitation, trembling, weak 
eyes and apoplexy." 

Dr. Allcott affirms that "Neither tea nor 
coffee makes a particle of blood or gives a 
particle of strength. The stimulation which 
accompanies their use is followed by a corre- 
sponding depression." He affirms that tea- 
drinkers often lose their power of self-control, 
and do and say many things which in cooler 
hours they deeply regret. 



A Good Drink. 

There is one excellent drink, to which allu- 
sion has been made in another part of this vol- 
ume. There it is spoken of as the protoxide 
of hydrogen ; again, it is called aqua fluvialis. 
It has a number of names. The one by which 
it is better known than any other is water. It 
is a capital beverage. If you will only try it 
some time, you will find it better than tea or 
coffee — better even than Bourbon whisky. 



332 OUE DIGESTION. 



OTHER AND SECRET ABUSES. 



As every habit or indulgence which reduces 
the general vigor affects first of all the stomach, 
I have thought it my duty to allude to sexual 
excesses in connection with indigestion. 

As no indulgence among the young saps the 
foundations of physical and mental vigor like 
secret vice, so no habit produces such fixed and 
incorrigible forms of dyspepsia. 

As a secondary cause, a grave indigestion — 
the result of secret vice — produces some of the 
most hopeless cases of insanity to be found in 
our asylums. 

And I only echo the voice of the wisest 
men in my profession, when I declare that 
excesses among married people must be placed 
near the head in the list of the causes of indi- 
gestion. In such cases no visit to the springs, 
or trip to Europe, or any other expedient, is 
likely to afford relief, unless husband and wife 
are separated. There are thousands of cases of 
severe, painful and almost hopeless dyspepsia 
among married people in this country, for 
which the only possible cure is to be found in 
sexual abstinence. 



OTHER AND SECRET ABUSES. 333 

I wish to add at this point what has been 
alluded to or partially stated in several other 
places in this work — viz., that whilst the 
stomach is the immediate cause of most of our 
good and bad health, it is in its turn the victim 
of any and every influence which exhausts our 
stamina. 

Let me illustrate : Five young men attempted 
in this city the feat of walking fifty miles in 
the least possible time. They were the most 
rapid walkers in the country. As I have al- 
ways been interested in these walking matches, 
and have hoped they might serve to make pop- 
ular the English habit of long and healthful 
walks, I was present during the first two hours 
of the match. A little Englishman, who had 
achieved the largest success on record for a 
single mile, astonished and delighted us with 
his seven and a half miles square heel and toe 
the first hour. I left, to return at a later hour, 
but remarked to some friends who remained 
to witness the struggle for the championship, 
" That little fellow will beat them all by five 
miles." 

During the sixth hour, I ran in again, and 
found my little Englishman pale and stagger- 
ing. What's up now ? What's the matter ? 

My friends explained that during the twenty- 
seventh mile our brag walker had been seized 



334 OUR DIGESTION. 

with nausea and vomiting, and had been retch- 
ing ever since. Brave little English bull-dog ! 
He staggered on, still ahead, until in the forty- 
first mile he was obliged to succumb, and was 
helped into the refreshment-room. The second 
fastest walker was passed by the third in the 
forty-ninth mile, because he too had given out 
in the stomach. 

In all the great pedestrian feats, the stomach 
is the part which fails first. The champion's 
feet may give out — they may blister and bleed — 
still, if his stomach remains good, he will con- 
trive to push on ; but when that gives out, he 
must go in. 

When a watcher with the sick is exhausted, 
it is in the stomach. 

When a man is struck on the head with a 
club, the first effect is vomiting. When a 
woman is exhausted, she puts her hand upon 
her stomach and exclaims : " Here it is, Doctor, 
such a sinking, such an all-gone sensation. " 

You have heard the phrase, " hit him where 
he lives." Well, that place is in the stomach ; 
and, while a man may be said to live in every 
part of his person, there is a very peculiar and 
vital sense in which he lives in his stomach. 
And so I say, again, that while indigestion is 
the proximate or immediate source of most of 
our affections of the heart, nerves, blood, etc., 



OTHER ABUSES. 335 

the stomach itself is the victim of any and 
every abuse which lowers the vitality. 

Mince-pie is not a whit more a source of in- 
digestion than is sleeplessness or overwork. 
Any cause which depresses the vital forces, as, 
for example, great care, anxiety, disappoint- 
ment, domestic discords, unrequited love, hard 
study, too little sleep, bad air, bad food or any- 
thing else that exhausts. 



336 QUE DIGESTION. 



TOBACCO AND THE STOMACH. 



The use of tobacco injures the stomach. Its 
influence upon digestion and assimilation is 
shown in the emaciation of its devotees. 

Three years ago an old man, with whom the 
author had been intimately acquainted for sev- 
eral years, died at the age of seventy-two. Up 
to the age of sixty, he had been a great sufferer 
from faintness in the pit of the stomach. It 
was the constant torment of his life. The sen- 
sation had been growing worse for several years, 
until his face habitually wore an air of despair. 
At the age of sixty he was so grievously tor- 
tured that he concluded to follow the author's 
advice and abandon tobacco, which he had 
chewed excessively. 

Within a week his stomach was sensibly 
better, and in three months he was so much 
improved that all his old friends on meeting 
him would exclaim : 

" General, how well you look ! TTliv, you 
look ten years younger than you did last sum- 
mer." 

He gained more than thirty pounds in a 
year, and his health became better than it had 
been for forty years. 



TOBACCO AND THE STOMACH. 337 

Those lantern-jawed Yankees who run to- 
bacco mills would soon become plump if they 
would stop " chawin' " and " smokin'." 

"Doctor, which is the worst, chewing or 
smoking ?" 

On the whole, chewing is the worst mode, 
principally for the reason that it can be in- 
dulged so constantly. The chewer begins on 
rising, and, with the exception of the nine min- 
utes and twenty-eight seconds devoted to break- 
fast, the fourteen minutes and fifty-nine and a 
half seconds given to dinner, and the eight 
minutes three and a quarter seconds spared for 
supper, the man runs his mill every moment 
till he gets into bed. Just as he turns the 
clothes down with one hand, to get into bed, he 
takes out of his mouth with the other hand the 
last quid. 

During the day, by this close economy of 
time, he grinds through twenty-six grists and 
projects juice six hundred and twelve times. 
This juice, if conscientiously gathered, would 
measure three pints. 

Smoking can't be carried on with such de- 
voted regularity, and, although worse than 
chewing for a given time, is practically not 
so mischievous. 

But when used in either mode it injures the 
stomach. It can't be indulged, even moder- 

29 



338 OUB DIGESTION. 

ately, without affecting prejudicially the func- 
tion of digestion. 



Excuses for Using Tobacco. 

As illustrating the excuses for the use of 
tobacco, a pleasant story is told of Dr. Nott 
and his students. It will be remembered by 
students of Union College that President 
Nott's edicts against tobacco were very severe. 
The use of it in any form was punished by 
expulsion. 

One evening the old doctor, as was his cus- 
tom, walked through the halls of the dormi- 
tories late in the evening to see that all was 
going well. While making this round one 
evening he thought he smelled tobacco smoke. 
So resolving himself, as Gough would phrase it, 
into a smelling committee, he put his nose to 
this and that door until he was sure he had 
the right one, and without knocking he opened 
the door and walked in. There he found four 
students puffing at long nines. 

In his severest manner — and no man could be 
more severe — he said, 

" Young gentlemen, I will see you in my 
private study to-morrow morning at nine 
o'clock." 

They knew very well what that meant, and, 




' He found four students puffing at long nines."— P. 322. 



EXCUSES FOR USING TOBACCO. 339 

as they were to be expelled the next day, they 
resolved to make a jolly night of it; so obtain- 
ing an extra supply of cigars they smoked and 
sang all night. At nine o'clock the next 
morning they went together to Dr. Nott's 
study. 

On walking into his presence they were told 
to take seats. Dr. Nott seated himself in his 
grand arm-chair, and, turning to the first of the 
four, he said : 

" Why do you smoke tobacco ?" 

The young men had no idea they would be 
permitted to defend themselves. The one ad- 
dressed eagerly said : 

" Mr. President, the reason I smoke tobacco 
is that I have been very much troubled with 
water-brash, and a physician told me that 
smoking was the only thing that would relieve 
it. That is the reason I smoke." 

" And how do you find it affects your water- 
brash ?" 

"Oh, it completely relieves it. I find it a 
perfect cure." 

"Ah, indeed! that is a very interesting fact. 
I wonder if the profession knows that ? Then 
you find that the smoking of tobacco relieves 
the water-brash ?" 

"Yes, Mr. President, I find it is a perfect 
relief." 



340 OUR DIGESTION. 

" Well, really, this is a very important scien- 
tific fact. I must put it down in my memoran- 
dum.' 7 

So the doctor deliberately, and with the 
gravest possible face, wrote it down, and then 
read what he had written, and said, as if speak- 
ing to himself, " Indeed, this is very interesting 
and very important." 

Turning to the second he said, "And why 
do you smoke ?" 

"Well, Mr. President, the reason that I 
smoke is this: the fact is, my family have all 
been very much troubled with the water-brash, 
and I thought, as smoking w T as a sure cure for 
it, that if I smoked now and then it would 
prevent it." 

" Well, this is still more interesting than the 
case of your friend. And do you find that 
smoking tobacco prevents it in your case '!" 

"Yes, Mr. President, it has entirely pre- 
vented it. I am not troubled with it in the 
least." 

"Well, I must put this down. Prevention 
is certainly more important than cure. Young 
gentlemen, you really surprise me. This is a 
very important development." 

Turning to the third one he said, "And why 
do you smoke ?" 

" Well, Mr. President, the fact is — the reason 



EXCUSES FOR USING TOBACCO. 341 

— the reason that I smoke — Mr. President — 
well, I smoke because I am troubled with the 
toothache, and I find that smoking entirely 
cures it." 

" Indeed ! Do you really find that the smok- 
ing of tobacco relieves the pain in your .tooth ?" 
- "Yes, sir; it entirely relieves me. I find 
that the smoking of a single cigar perfectly 
cures me." 

"Well, young gentlemen, you have really 
made very interesting discoveries. I am sur- 
prised that these facts were not generally known 
to the medical profession. It would seem that 
the remedy is not very bad to take, and cer- 
tainly it ought to be widely known. You don't 
find it bad to take, do you ?" 

" Not very, Mr. President ; we are willing to 
take it for the relief it affords." 

Turning to the fourth young man, President 
Nott said, "And why do you smoke ?" 

"Mr. President, the reason I smoke — what 
makes me smoke — I will tell you why I smoke 
■ — the fact is, I am very much troubled with 
corns." 

President Nott rose, reached out his hands to 
the four young men and said, " Young gentle- 
men, will you give me your word of honor that 
you will not smoke or use tobacco in any other 
form during your stay in this institution ?" 

29* 



342 OUR DIGESTION. 

"Yes, yes, indeed/' they all eagerly said, tak- 
ing hold of his hands. 

"Young gentlemen, good morning." And 
they went away well pleased with the result of 
the interview. 

I know what has been said of the medicinal 
virtues of tobacco. Its friends claim for it the 
preservation of the teeth, the relief of throat 
ailments, the cure of consumption, the certain 
relief of stomach and liver diseases, the cure of 
constipation, the sure cure of neuralgia and 
sciatica, and now we hear that no smoker has 
ever been known to commit suicide. 

To all such advocates I commend the Gov- 
ernor's famous argument in favor of alcohol as 
a food. 

How Tobacco Hurts Man. 

The following is from a lecture delivered in Boston by Dr. Dio 
Lewis, and reported by J. M. W. Yerrinton for u The Congrega- 
tionalist and Recorder." 

I believe that tobacco is playing an import- 
ant part in the morbid development of our 
nervous systems. I want to discuss this ques- 
tion frankly. I have used tobacco, and for 
many years I used it excessively. I both 
chewed and smoked it. In college I smoked a 
short black pipe, and used to show it to my 
fellow-students with pride because of its rare 
color; and then I chawed between the smokes. 



HOW TOBACCO HURTS MAN. 343 

During the last fifteen years I have used, say, 
sixty segars, an average of four a year. I 
have sometimes avoided it altogether for sev- 
eral years. You see that I have had experience, 
and I am not going to say a severe word to any 
victim of the weed. Having used it myself 
without evil purpose, I am only going to tell 
you in a plain, friendly way what science says 
of it. 

Tobacco in its ordinary state — the " plug" 
which you have in your pockets here to-night 
— is a powerful poison. It will do what few 
other poisons will do. I do not now speak of 
the oil of tobacco. I do not speak of nicotine, 
a single drop of which put upon the tongue of 
a cat will kill her in two minutes ; three drops 
of which put upon the tongue of a bull-dog 
will kill him so quick he will hardly get out 
of your arms in his struggles ; and ten drops 
of which will kill a cow inside of ten minutes. 
I am not talking of these things at all, although 
they are all in the tobacco ; but to-night I am 
talking of tobacco in the form of the original 
"plug." 

Now, gentlemen, let me suppose an experi- 
ment. I call from this audience a boy ten 
years old, one who has never used tobacco. 
"Charles, will you help us make an experi- 
ment here to-night ?" 



344 OUR DIGESTION. 

" Yes, sir." 

" I will give you fifty dollars if you will go 
through it like a plucky man." 

" I will, sir." 

" The experiment is this : There is a piece 
of tobacco as large as a pea. Put that in your 
mouth ; chew it ; don't let one drop go down 
your throat; spit every drop into that spit- 
toon; but keep on chewing; don't stop; just 
chew steadily." 

Before he is done with that piece of to- 
bacco, as large as a pea, simply squeezing the 
juice out of it without swallowing a drop, he 
lies here upon the platform in a cold, death- 
like perspiration ; he vomits the contents of 
his stomach ; put your fingers upon his wrist, 
there is no pulse ; and so he seems for two or 
three hours as though he were dying, or, per- 
chance, dead. 

Steep a small piece of tobacco in a quart of 
Water and bathe the neck or back of a calf that 
may be troubled with vermin. You will kill 
the vermin, but if you are not careful you will 
kill the calf too. 

Now, gentlemen, go to your drug stores, 
begin with the upper shelves and take down 
every bottle, and then open every drawer, and 
you cannot find a single poison (except some 
very rare ones which you never heard of) 



HOW TOBACCO HURTS MAN. 345 

which, taken into the mouth of that ten-year- 
old boy and not swallowed, will produce those 
effects. Tobacco, then, I repeat, in its ordinary 
state is an extremely powerful poison. 

That is my first point against tobacco. 

Now I want to speak of the modes in which 
this poison has been used by man. 

First, chawing. Some people call it chewing. 
That is not the word at all ; chaw is the word. 
Everybody knows how it is done. If you don't 
know how it is done, ask some clean house- 
keeper and she will tell you. She will be 
eloquent on the subject. 

Second, smoking. Somebody has described 
smoking as a small roll of tobacco with a little 
fire at one end and a big fool at the other. 

Third, snuffing. If snuffing had no other 
claim, it is certainly the funniest way in which 
tobacco was ever used. I can't see a man take 
snuff without roaring. Just look at him. He 
is a grave-looking man — a judge or a senator. 
He is none of your jokers or buffoons. This 
man puts his thumb and fore-finger into his 
vest pocket and brings out a little box — puts it 
into his hand — looks at it seriously — knocks on 
the top of it solemnly — lifts up the cover — 
looks in — puts in his finger and thumb and 
brings out a little dark-colored powder, and 
then begins to punch it at his nose. After a 



346 QUE DIGESTION. 

few punches, lie brushes his fingers, perhaps his 
linen, closes his box, puts it in his pocket, and 
walks off with the air of a man who has done 
his duty, and satisfied one of the most serious 
claims of his existence. 

Fourth, snuff-rubbing. I have been through 
the Southern States, but I never saw this snuff- 
rubbing. Some of our soldiers have told me 
they saw it everywhere. The scene is this : 
here are a dozen young ladies who have assem- 
bled for a snuff-rub. It is said to be a common 
thing to hear one girl ask another, "Miss 
Mary, were you up at the Colonel's at the last 
rub?" I was about describing the scene. A 
dozen girls are waiting. A negro man enters, 
bearing in his hands a tray. Upon this tray 
there are a dozen or twenty snuff-brooms — little 
sticks of dog-wood, one end of which has been 
beaten into the condition of a splint broom. 
Each girl takes one of these and puts the splint 
into her mouth, and keeps it there until it be- 
comes moist. Now the negro man comes along 
again with his tray, on which he carries a box 
x or bowl of snuff, and each girl dips the wet end 
of her stick into the snuff, twists it round to 
make it hold as much as possible, carries it to 
her mouth and begins to rub her teeth inside, 
outside and all round. Then she (ladies, excuse 
me) spits ! Then she dips and rubs, and (ex- 



HOW TOBACCO HURTS MAN. 347 

cuse me) spits ! She hears a story, she tells a 
story, but she never forgets to dip and rub and 
spit. When this thing has been going on for 
a couple of hours, they kiss each other good- 
night, and congratulate each other upon the 
happy influence this practice exerts upon their 
teeth. For they tell you that the reason they 
do this is because it is so good for their teeth. 

Fifth, snuff-chewing. In my visits to the 
South I never saw a woman chew snuff, but 
Dr. Cole, Dr. Fowler, Dr. Waterhouse and 
other writers on tobacco affirm that some 
women in Alabama, Georgia, and other South- 
ern States, chew snuff just as men chew cut to- 
bacco, and I have no reason to doubt it. 

Sixth, plugging. A well-known American 
traveler tells us that the peasantry in Norway 
and Sweden use tobacco by plugging the nose. 
For this purpose they use small rolls about the 
size of one's little finger. They cut off a small 
piece, say half an inch in length, and twist it 
up the nostril, and let it remain there until the 
narcotic principle has been absorbed. The 
same tourist says it is the cleanest way in which 
tobacco was ever used. Although it spoils the 
voice, still a man can talk so as to be under- 
stood, and it does not cause any spitting. The 
traveler advises everybody who must use to- 
bacco, to try plugging. 



348 OUE DIGESTION. 

Seventh, smoke-swallowing. The same gen- 
tleman informs us that the Russian peasantry 
use tobacco by smoking and swallowing the 
smoke. A single pipe of tobacco furnishes a 
company of twenty men with as much stimulus 
as twenty pipes would, used in the ordinary way. 
The first man fills his mouth with smoke to its 
utmost capacity, and then proceeds to swallow 
that smoke, passing the pipe to the next man, 
and so on, each in his turn filling his mouth 
with smoke and swallowing it. 

Now I want to consider the influence on our 
health of some of these modes. 

First, chawing. Look into a man's mouth 
w r ho chaws tobacco, and see how red it is. The 
doctor no longer appeals to it to determine the 
condition of a man's stomach. He can learn 
nothing by examining his patient's tongue, if 
he be a chewer of tobacco. That congestion 
which produces the redness extends a little far- 
ther down than you can see, and affects the 
speech. Dr. Cole and Dr. Waterhouse affirm 
that they can always tell whether a public 
speaker be a chewer of tobacco or not, so pecu- 
liar is its influence upon the articulation. But 
let that pass. 

Next, smoking. Smoking injures the teeth : 
it produces decay in the teeth. I produced 
decay in two of my upper teeth and one under 



HOW TOBACCO HURTS MAN. 349 

tooth by holding my pipe or cigar between them 
before I had any other decayed tooth in my 
mouth. It is not remarkable that, with the 
heat of the tobacco smoke, and its acrid poison, 
the teeth should suffer. But that is nothing 
compared with its influence upon the lungs. 

Put your hand over your eye, fill your mouth 
with smoke, and then blow the smoke up 
under your hand. Now look in the glass. 
How red the eye is ! The tears run down the 
cheek. What is the matter ? There has been 
a powerful poison in the eye. 

And yet, men whose fathers and grand- 
fathers have died of .consumption, do not scru- 
ple to sit down in a room where there are a 
dozen smokers, and smoke until it is all blue, 
taking in lung-ful after lung-ful of that deadly 
poison. 

I believe, with Dr. Waterhouse, that if young 
men would abandon cigars, consumption would 
be confined more exclusively to women, and in 
them be produced by their unhappy style of 
dress. 

I believe the great Liebig, who says that, of 
the German males who die between fifteen and 
fifty, many die of smoking tobacco. 

Pass on to snuffing. In the first place, snuff- 
ing spoils the voice. 

How strange it is that any man should will- 

30 



350 OUR DIGESTION. 

fully change his voice, the richest music this 
side of heaven, into a nasal snarl, by taking 
snuff into his nose! I tell you that a man who 
doubts the doctrine of total depravity must be 
staggered by that fact. 

Besides, it produces headache and diseases of 
the stomach which nobody can cure. An old 
Scotchman came to me once about his health. 
He said : 

"Doctor, I have something ju>t here in my 
forehead, which is not a pain, but a burning, 
gnawing distress; and I have in my stomach 
the same gnawing, burning distress." 

And while he was telling this story he put 
his hand in his breast pocket and brought out 
a horn such as Highland Scotchmen use for 
snuff. He turned back the metallic lid, put in 
his thumb and finger, and brought out a small 
horn spoon just adapted to the nostril, dipped 
it up full of snuff, carried it to his nose, and, 
presto, the snuff was gone ! Then he dipped 
again, and filled the other nostril. 

Said I, " How often do you come that ¥' 

" Come what ?" said he. 

"That little performance you have just I 
through." 

"Oh," said he, "I take snuff I (1-." 

" Yes/' I said, ik I began to suspect you might 
be in the habit." 



HOW TOBACCO HURTS MAN. 351 

"You don't think snuff is injurious, do you ?" 
he asked. 

Said I, " Now listen to me a moment. How 
long will that horn-full last you ?" 

" Well," said he, " if the neighbors let me 
alone, that horn-full will last me all day long" 

"And where do you suppose that snuff all 
goes to ?" 

"Well," he said, "I never thought about 
that. That is the snuff's business. I never 
thought much about that." 

Said I, "It certainly don't stay in your nose, 
because your nose isn't big enough ; it could not 
hold it. Around your nose there are twenty 
small cavities — each of the cheek bones has a 
very large one — and every one of these twenty 
cavities discharges all its secretions into the 
nose, which is the sewer of the face. Now this 
snuff that you take into your nose finds its way 
into those cavities, and the consequence is you 
have the burning, gnawing distress in your 
head ; and, more than that, the snuff goes di- 
rectly into your stomach, and produces that 
gnawing, burning sensation there." I told him 
that in no way could tobacco make its . way 
directly into the stomach except in the form of 
snuff. 

But I will not push the details of the influ- 
ence of these modes further. I will now say 



352 OUB DIGESTION. 

that, no matter how you use tobacco, it lets 
down your tone. 

Don't you know that most of us are satisfied 
with a health we ought to be ashamed of? 

Ask a man, "'How are you, Colonel ?" and 
he says : 

" I am perfectly well ; I am always well ; I 
never had a doctor in my life." And yet that 
man has no spirits, no happiness. 

Happiness is the legitimate fruit of health, 
as apples are the legitimate fruit of apple trees. 

I remember in my father's neighborhood was 
a deacon, a good man, whose name was a syno- 
nym for every good word and work. The dea- 
con was not well, and his sickness manifested 
itself in low spirits. I never heard him say a 
cheerful thing. I passed his house one day 
and saw him in the front yard. It was a mag- 
nificent morning ; God's smile shone out all 
over everything. I thought I had the deacon 
in a tight place, and I said : 

" Good-morning, deacon. Isn't this a splen- 
did day?" 

"Yes," said he, "but it's only a weather 
breeder" 

The deacon wasn't well ; that was his trouble. 

I did see a man once that I thought was 
well. I was walking down Lake street in 
Chicago one morning, and I saw a big man 



HOW TOBACCO HURTS MAN. 353 

with a great buffalo overcoat and a big fur cap 
walking along in a vigorous way, and every 
few steps he would strike his leg and jump a 
foot off the sidewalk, and as he came down he 
would scream a little, laugh and walk on. The 
boys thought he was drunk. It was about 
seven o'clock in the morning, and the boys 
who were taking down the shutters of the 
stores would call out to each other : 

" Say, Charlie, he's all right." 

But he did not act to me like a drunken 
man. He certainly was behaving queerly, and 
being interested in queer folks, as you all are, 
I hurried along and got up by his side. I 
looked him in the face and said : 

" Good-morning, sir." 

" Good-morning," he replied. 

" Anything the matter this morning ?" 

With that, flourishing his hand and giving 
his leg a great slap, he jumped up about two 
feet from the sidewalk, and as he came down 
he squirmed all oyer, screamed like a railroad 
whistle and said, " I feel good" 

That man was well, and when anybody is 
well, it crops out in hope, in happiness. 

Well, friends, tobacco lets you down — lets 
you down below the normal level. No man 
who fills his system with opium, tobacco, or any 
other narcotic poison, can have high spirits ; it 

30* 



354 OUE DIGESTION. 

lets liim down low. Look at the Turks, poi- 
soned with opium. There never was such a 
solemn people. They never smile. 

Our Yankees, who are chewing and squirt- 
ing eternally, are becoming about as bad as the 
Turks. I came up from Providence to Boston 
to-night, and I declare to you that, when I got 
out of the cars, I had to wade through seas of 
tobacco spittle. 

I say these Yankees, who are for ever chair- 
ing, are not a happy people. 

With all our wealth and means of comfort, 
there Tire few nations on this planet that have 
so little real enjoyment. 

But, friends, permit me one point more. Let 
us go a little higher. How does a man differ 
from a horse ? Not in having a body, for a 
horse has a body too ; not in having intellect, 
for a horse has intellect too ; not in having a 
social nature, for a horse, or a dog if you please, 
is more social than a man. 

Then what is the distinguishing character- 
istic of our humanity ? It is the possession of 
moral and religious sensibilities. These con- 
stitute links in that chain which unites us to 
God overhead, through which every one of as 
hopes some day in the future to go up like an 
electric spark, to live above our present selves. 

I know I but echo the voices of the wise ones 



HOW TOBACCO HURTS MAN. 355 

of the world when I say that this tobacco par- 
alyzes these moral sensibilities almost more than 
any other habit in which civilized men indulge. 

Gentlemen, I advise you to clean yourselves 
and quit. I would give it up. It is a nasty, 
disgusting, ruinous habit. But somebody says, 
4i I can't give it up ; I want to, and have tried, 
but I can't do it." Can't you? 

If you really are so enslaved that you can't 
break your chains, I will help you a little. 
Stop to-night ; don't use any to-morrow. The 
first day will not be so very hard. You can 
get on pretty well the first day, as everybody 
knows who has been through the mill as I have 
been. The second day is pretty bad. In the 
afternoon of the second day your memory is a 
little doubtful ; you can't exactly say whether 
it was one brother or three brothers that came 
over; you can't exactly say whether your 
grandfather came from the east or the west 
when he settled here. But be patient the 
second day. The third morning comes the 
tug. Now go and take an old-fashioned al- 
cohol sweat. Place an alcohol lamp under 
your chair, put a blanket over your shoulders 
and sweat until your skin is fairly parboiled. 
Then you will be just as comfortable for one 
day as you could wish. There is no dryness 
of the mouth, no disturbance of* the secretions. 



356 OUR DIGESTION. 

You are perfectly comfortable for one day. 
The next day you are in trouble again, but 
not so bad as the day before. Take another 
sweat; take even a third or a fourth one. 
Sweating does not hurt people; sometimes it 
is good for them. Take three or four thorough 
sweats, and then you will go off under easy 
sail, and will have no further trouble from your 
enemy. 

Ladies, I advise you to sweat 'cm. "Whether 
they will or not, sweat 'em. 



OUR COOKS. 357 



OUR COOKS. 



Deacon W , residing six miles out of 

Boston, parted with his coachman and his cook 
on the fifth of July. They returned from Bos- 
ton late on the evening of the fourth a little 
too patriotic for practical purposes, and the 
result was that on the morning of the fifth they 
were sent off. 

Mrs. W , being an invalid, was in great 

distress, as she expected company, while the 
Deacon was very, very sorry about his horses. 
But he hurried in after breakfast, put an adver- 
tisement in the papers, with directions to call at 
his office in Kilby street. The next morning 
they began to come. The Deacon understands 
the necessity of a good hostler, and questioned 
every man who applied for the position. 

" How often do you think horses should be 
fed? What do you think is the best food? 
Should it be given whole or ground ? When 
should hay be given ? Should it be fed in a 
rack or from a trough? When should the 
horses be watered ? Should they be allowed to 
drink all they want ?" etc., etc. The Deacon 
had determined he would not be humbugged. 



358 OUR DIGESTION. 

He knew that if his horses were to flourish, the 
man in charge must be intelligent, and under- 
stand the business of feeding, driving and tak- 
ing care of them. The Deacon asked many 
questions about the use of the curry-comb, 
brush, blankets, etc. Nearly thirty men called 
before he found one that suited him. After 
receiving satisfactory answers to his many 
questions, and examining the man's character, 
he concluded to engage him. The wages were 
thirty-five dollars per month. 

The Deacon engaged the second girl that 
applied for the position of cook. The first one 
was evidently intemperate. The second one 
was quite young, but clean and healthy. He 
asked her if she could do plain cooking. She 
replied, "Bedad, and it's meself that can do 
that same!" The Deacon wished to see her 
"character," which, although written by an un- 
known party, stated that she was honest, a good 
plain cook, with but little experience. The 
Deacon said that would do — it was simply a 
cook they wanted. So after agreeing upon 
three dollars a week, he gave her a car ticket 
and a card with the directions, and forwarded 
her to madam, that the machinery of the home 
might be set in motion. The Deacon has four 
children, dependent, with himself and wife, 
upon the cook for their health. This ignorant 



OUE COOKS. 359 

Irish girl, without experience, was given unre- 
strained, unlooked-after charge of the prepara- 
tion of all the food for the family. The health, 
the happiness of the group were made to hinge 
upon Biddy's skill in cooking. 

When the Deacon returned in the evening, 
he went directly to the barn, and for half a 
month looked after his horses more or less every 
day, lest Thomas' skill should not fully meet 
the necessities of the case. But no one seemed 
to doubt that Biddy would be able to prepare 
the food all right for the family. 

While some insist upon the best tailor, upon 
the best upholsterer, the best dressmaker, the 
finest church, school, actor and artist, and 
would laugh at the idea of a green Irishman 
in any of them, they go to an intelligence 
office, pick up a fresh-caught Irish girl and 
hire her to perform services more important 
than all of these put together — I mean more 
important to the health and happiness of them 
and their loved ones. 

I should not so much object to employing 
Bridget to make a dress for my wife, to teach 
the piano or to do any other similar service if 
we were hard pushed ; but I protest that igno- 
rance and stupidity shall not rule in the kitchen. 
The physical, intellectual and moral life of the 
household rests upon the kitchen, almost to the 



360 OUR DIGESTION. 

same extent that a building rests upon its foun- 
dation. In the kitchen, if nowhere else, we 
must have judgment and skill. 

Two things must certainly be done if we 
continue to live in the present isolated way : 
We must establish schools for the training of 
cooks, and we must make up our minds to pay 
five to ten dollars a w^eek for the services of a 
good cook. 

There is no such waste in any other depart- 
ment of our life. We provide the very best 
flour, meats, poultry, fish, vegetables, fruits, 
sauces and condiments which the capital, science 
and skill of the world can produce. In mak- 
ing these purchases we pour out our money 
like water. Delivered in our kitchens, Bridget 
OTlaherty, surrounded by ranges, boilers, steam- 
ers, and a thousand and one conveniences, pre- 
pares and sends up to the dining-room stuff 
which does not gratify the palate, which dam- 
ages the stomach, poisons the blood, and seriously 
deranges our entire life, physical, intellectual, 
social, moral and religious. At no other point, 
I repeat, in our civilized life, is there such 
stupid, reckless waste. No sane man would 
endure such ignorance in the management of 
his horses or his lioffs. 

Christianity can make but little progress 
under the present system of cookery. Dyspep- 



WHY NOT HAVE YANKEE COOKS? 361 

sia is a cloud so dense that it shuts out the 
very light of heaven. 

Another Glimpse at the Picture. 

The hired cook in America is an Irish girl. 
She cooked potatoes and porridge in Ireland, 
and, on arriving in "Afheriky," assumes the 
management of one of our kitchens. This is 
wretched business. I know that an Irish girl 
may be a good cook. I have known such. 
Still, the Irish girl's brain is mostly incapable 
of patience, accuracy and skill. And these are 
precisely the qualities required in good cookery. 

English, Scotch and Holland girls make good 
cooks. Yankee women make the best cooks in 
the world. I have eaten dinners prepared in a 
New England village which in style and flavor 
were superior to anything I have ever seen in 
Europe. The native New England brain has 
just that sharpness necessary to the exact pro- 
portions and manipulations of good cookery. 

Why not have Yankee Cooks? 

What a painful spectacle this is : A million 
Yankee girls wasting and dying in crowded 
shops, occupied with sewing and kindred tasks, 
and a million homes dyspeptic and unhappy for 
want of the help of those girls ! The homes 

31 



362 OUR DIGESTION. 

are waiting and longing for the girls, the girls 
are dying for the homes. The homes offer com- 
fort, health and independence to the girls, the 
girls are wasting, in brainless mechanical 
routine, the bright faculties which would change 
the homes from discomfort to comfort and 
health. And, strange to say, these two which 
are perishing for want of each other do not 
live on separate continents, but in the same 
streets, and often under the same roof. I shall 
not discuss in this place the difficulties in the 
way; it is enough for our present purpose to 
know that, for some reason, these homes and 
girls have not been able to find each other. 



Success in Finding' a Yankee Cook. 

One of my neighbors felt the need of an 
intelligence in his kitchen which he did not 
find in Biddy Finnigan. By my advice he 
went down one day into the lower part of the 
city to a large ready-made clothing establish- 
ment, for a look among three hundred Yankee 
sewing-girls. Almost the first one he saw on 
entering seemed so pale and wretched, that he 
instinctively asked her if she would not like 
to change her occupation, and mentioned his 
kitchen. 

" I know nothing of cooking," she said. 






WHY NOT HAVE YANKEE COOKS? 363 

" But would you be willing to learn if you 
had an opportunity ?" 

" Well, no, I had rather not at present." 

"But this is such an unhealthy place, and 
you seem so pale." 

" Yes, I am not very well." 

"Would you be willing to go a few weeks 
into the country and stop with a sister of mine, 
and learn to do plain cooking, and then come 
and live with us ?" 

" Well, sir, if you will force me to say it, 7* 
won't be anybody's servant! I had rather be 
my own boss." 

" But don't you work under a boss here ?" 

"Well, yes, there is an overseer, and he is 
no gentleman either. Sometimes he talks to us 
in a most outrageous way." 

" How much do you receive for running that 
machine ?" 

" I get five dollars." 

" How much do you pay for your board ?" 

" Four dollars." 

" And you are rapidly wearing your life out 
for nothing. If you will come and live with 
us, we will give you a chance to recover your 
health, a nice, comfortable room, and not only 
an opportunity to secure independence, but, if 
you succeed, you will make us all inexpressibly 
grateful to you ; and as soon as you can do our 



364 OUR DIGESTION. 

cooking, I will give you five dollars a week in 
addition to home comforts. What do you say ? 
Will you go ? I infer from your face that you 
can easily learn all that we want done." 

" I am much obliged to you, and I will think 
of it." 

My friend brought her up to his house the 
next evening, where she was so warmly wel- 
comed and treated with such unexpected kind- 
ness that her prejudices gave way, and she is 
now installed as mistress of his kitchen. Al- 
ready she receives six dollars per week, and is 
an honored member of the family. 

In the city of Boston there are at this mo- 
ment ten thousand bright American girls wast- 
ing their lives in exhaustive sedentary occupa- 
tions, almost gasping for breath, who could 
change ten thousand homes into real comfort, 
and secure for themselves health, independence 
and long life,, 

It is charged that the lady of the house 
treats her cook as a menial. As things go at 
present, there is but little kind feeling. On 
the one side we find dirt, ignorance and dis- 
honesty; on the other suspicion and disgust. 
But discharge the stupid cook, and introduce 
another who is neat, bright and honest, and she 
will not only have things her own way, but in 
a large majority of families she will be grate- 



WHY NOT HAVE YANKEE COOKS? 365 

fully appreciated. Our ten thousand girls, dys- 
peptic and wretched, could find such homes in 
this city. And thus placed it might be truly 
said, that they are the most independent 
among our working people. I don't know 
any other woman who is so comfortably, inde- 
pendently and permanently placed as a faithful 
cook. She is. obliged to receive wages from her 
employer it is true, but all working people are 
under the same necessity. On the other hand, 
her employer and his family must depend upon 
her for much of health and happiness. 

The Yankee girl who would secure to her- 
self an honored position in some home must 
learn the simple arts of plain cooking. This 
is all she really needs to know to secure such a 
home and such independence. Of course, it is 
understood that she is honest, and feels a sin- 
cere, hearty interest in all that concerns the 
treasury and comfort of the household. 

The difference in religion and habits of 
thought, with perhaps a constitutional lack of 
honor on the part of Ann O'Finnegan, makes 
the present relations between the mistress and 
her cook so unsatisfactory that the change to 
a clean, bright, honest friend, who, in addition 
to the prompt preparation of good food, would 
enter heartily into the interests of the family, 
would elicit in most families such a grateful 

31* 



366 OUR DIGESTION. 

enthusiasm that the cook would become the 
pet of the family. There are thousands of 
families in this city who would cheerfully give 
such a cook thirty to forty dollars a month. 
Such a cook would not only have a healthy 
occupation, surrounded with the best comforts 
of a home, but might lay up more money than 
a hundred shop girls. 

Is it not true that the life of a sewing-girl 
is hard, short and wretched? Is it not true 
that a large majority of the comely girls add 
to their income by means which make their 
true friends shudder ? 

Is it not true that, by entering kitchens a* I 
have suggested, they might secure the health 
and independence named ? 



RECEIPTS FOB GOOD FOODS. 367 



RECEIPTS FOR GOOD POODS. 



These receipts have been gathered from my 
own cook, and from others of large experience, 
including two or three cook-books. 

Bean Porridge. 

Every one knows how to make bean por- 
ridge, though perhaps it may be well to state 
that the salt should not be introduced till the 
porridge is nearly done. 

Some cooks have a fancy that no other meat 
than pork will do to boil with the beans, but 
beef is quite as good, and chicken is still better 
than either beef or pork. We have all learned 
that bean porridge improves with age, for who 
has not heard the lines, 

"Bean porridge hot, bean porridge cold, 
Bean porridge best when it's nine days old." 

A Shin-of-Beef Soup. 

Have the shin cracked up well ; put it to boil 
in five or six quarts of water ; boil it five or 
six hours ; skim it very often. 

Cut up, very fine, half a white cabbage ; chop 
two turnips, three onions; put them into the 



368 OUR DIGESTION. 

soup, with pepper and salt, and boil it two 
hours ; take the bone and gristle out before 
serving. If you have some raised dough, 
make up a dozen little balls, the size of a nut- 
meg, and drop them into the soup and boil it 
half an hour. 

Mutton Broth. 

Boil a shoulder of mutton, the cheapest part 
of the sheep, in four quarts of water two hours. 
Add one onion, two turnips cut fine, one table- 
spoonful of salt, and one cup of rice. Then 
boil an hour and a half longer; cut a little 
parsley, and put it in five minutes before 
dishing. 

Then the mutton can be served with drawn 
butter and capers. 

Beef Stew. 

Six pounds of the flank of beef, cut in small 
pieces, boil in two quarts of water until tender. 
Then put in a dozen potatoes, a dozen onions, 
four turnips ; cover it so that the steam shall 
not escape ; salt and pepper to the taste. 

Another. 

Put a shin of beef, well cracked up, to boil 
in six quarts of water; boil it four hours. 



RECEIPTS FOR GOOD FOODS. 369 

Then put in vegetables cut in large slices. 
Salt and pepper to the taste. Ten minutes 
before serving, put in the dumplings. 
Veal stews made in the same way. 



Lamb Stews. 

Take half a shoulder of lamb, and boil it in 
two quarts of water for two hours. Then put 
in potatoes, onions, turnips, cut in quarters, 
two teaspoonfuls of salt, and pepper to the 
taste. Ten minutes before serving, put in the 
dumplings. 

Mutton stews made in the same way. 

Gems or Iron-Clads. 

Taking into account the time and labor 
required in making, the care and apparatus 
needed, and their lightness and tenderness, 
these cakes must be considered the best form 
of family bread. 

Stir Graham flour into soft cold water, mak- 
ing a batter a trifle thicker than for griddle- 
cakes. The exact proportions cannot be given, 
as flour will swell more at some times than at 
others. Drop from a spoon into the cups of 
the bread-pans, which are already heated, and 
bake in a hot oven. Take them from* the pan 



370 . OUB DIGESTION. 

as soon as they are done, and arrange them on 
plates, taking care that no weight rests on 
them to make them heavy. 

Both Graham biscuit and drop-cakes, after 
standing two or three days, are made as good 
as new by dipping in cold water and setting in 
a hot oven a few minutes, or steaming over 
boiling water. 

As a general thing, the best time for baking 
all these unleavened cakes is in the morning, 
when the stove is just cleared of its ashes. 

If one can command the time and strength, 
all cakes of this kind are made lighter and 
more delicate by being beaten ten or fifteen 
minutes while mixing the batter, but it is not 
necessary in order to make good bread. 



Corn Drop-Cakes. 

Mix corn-meal with boiling new milk until 
you have a thick batter ; put in the patent pans 
at once, and bake fast for twenty or thirty 
minutes. 

Some people think corn-cakes of all kinds 
are more palatable, and more easily digested, if 
the meal is mixed the night before, and allowed 
to stand all nisiit before baking. "When this 
cannot be done, scalding answers nearly the 



RECEIPTS FOR GOOD FOODS. 371 

same purpose. It takes out the strong taste of 
the meal, which some dislike. 

Corn drop-cakes are also good made in the 
same manner as the Graham cakes. Some 
would prefer them wet with sweet milk instead 
of water. Corn-meal batter can also be baked 
in cards, on large tins, as it is in its nature fri- 
able ; but wheat flour or meal, in order to be 
light, needs to be baked in a cup that will 
hold enough to make it the size of a common 
biscuit. 

Corn Drop-Cakes. 

Beat two eggs with a tablespoonful of sugar, 
add a pint of milk, and stir in corn-meal, mak- 
ing a thin batter. Bake in patent bread-pans. 



Rye Drop-Cakes. 

Stir rye meal or flour into milk or water, 
making a batter stiffer than for wheaten cakes. 
These are a little liable to be heavy ; but with 
a good hot oven, and a little care in handling, 
they will be light, and furnish an agreeable and 
wholesome variety to the table. 



Oatmeal Cakes. 
Now for one of the most capital articles of 



372 OUR DIGESTION. 

food ever eaten. Manage it in this way : Into 
a quart of cold water, stir oatmeal enough to 
make it about as thick as hasty pudding. Be 
sure that the meal is sprinkled in so slowly, and 
that the stirring is so active, that the mush will 
have no lumps in it. Now, put it on a tin pan, 
where it can spread out to half the thickness of 
a common cracker, and smooth it down with a 
case-knife. Run a sharp knife across it, so as 
to divide it into the sized pieces you wish, and 
then place it in a warm oven and bake slowly, 
being careful, however, not to brown it. A lit- 
tle butter or suet rubbed over the tin pan 
before spreading the mush, will prevent stick- 
ing. When it is done, eat as you would bread. 
You have one of the must delicious articles of 
food ever eaten ; besides, it will keep for some 
time. These oatmeal cakes c< institute an admir- 
able food, delicious and nutritious. 



Oatmeal Crisps. 

Mix and knead well together nicely prepared 
oatmeal and water into quite a stiff dough ; 
mould on a board, roll into thin sheets, and cut 
into any form desired ; lay in baking pans, and 
bake about fifteen minutes in a quick oven. 
These are best when fresh from the oven. This 
is a very favorite cake with the Scotch people, 



RECEIPTS FOR GOOD FOODS. 373 

who can get a superior kind of oatmeal. They 
let it remain in the oven and get quite hard, 
thinking it sweeter and more digestible. 

All other kinds of meal and flour can be 
made into crisps or wafers in this way, and are 
excellent. 



Oaten Cakes, called Clapped Bread. 

Mix oatmeal, with a little salt and cold 
water, quickly into a moderately stiff paste, 
patting it with the hands, with plenty of oat- 
meal strewed over and under it, until it is as 
thin and flat as it can be made. The cakes, 
which are about the size of a breakfast-plate, 
must be made singly, baked on a griddle-iron, 
turned while they are doing, and afterwards 
toasted a little before the fire to render them 
crisp. 

Hoe-Cake. 

Sift a quart of good, sweet corn-meal, yellow 
or white ; add a spoonful of salt ; turn on to it 
boiling water, stirring all the time ; when well 
scalded, hot, not too soft, wet the hand in cold 
water, spread the meal on a board, and set it 
before the fire to bake. When baked on one 
side, turn it and bake it on the other. Split 
it open, butter it, serve it hot. 

32 



374 OUB DIGESTION. 

Original Rhode Island Johnny-Cake. 

Into a quart of white meal put a little salt, 
then pour boiling water until it is stiff enough 
to hold together. 

Drop it from a spoon upon a hot griddle, 
cooking for a minute, then, without turning, 
slip them into a hot pan, and place in a very 
hot oven, and bake thirty minutes. 



Johnny-Cake No. 2. 

Into a quart of white meal put a little salt, 
then pour in boiling milk until it is stiff enough 
to hold together. Drop it from a spoon upon 
a hot pan, and then place in a very hot oven. 
After they have been in the oven two minute-, 
cool them off a little and bake thirty minutes. 

Graham Biscuit. 

Stir, with a spoon, tepid water into Graham 
flour until it is stiff enough to form into a 
dough as soft as can be kneaded ; roll out 
when sufficiently kneaded to be well mixed, 
and cut into cakes three-quarters of an inch in 
thickness. Lay them on baking-pans, so that 
they will not touch each other, and bake in a 
quick oven, letting them remain long enough 



RECEIPTS FOR GOOD FOODS. 375 

to become brown and crisp, which, with a good 
heat, will require about twenty-five minutes, 
or taking them out when just done through, 
as one prefers ; if not sufficiently baked, they 
will be heavy on the bottom. Put them on a 
grate or a colander to cool, that they may not 
steam and become heavy. 



Graham Bread. 

Four quarts of unbolted wheat, a teacupful 
of good yeast, half a cup of molasses, and one 
tablespoonful of salt, mixed with warm water 
enough to make a stiff dough; let it rise six 
or eight hours ; wet your hands in cold water 
to put it into the pans ; let it rise an hour, or 
until it has risen an inch ; bake it two hours. 

It should be very well baked. 



Unfermented Bread. 

Take two pounds of flour, one teaspoonful 
(heaping) of bi-carbonate of soda ; mix them 
thoroughly with a wooden spoon. Then take 
one pint of cold water, or as much as may be 
needed, and mix with about one and a half tea- 
spoonfuls of muriatic acid. Measure it in a 
wooden spoon or some glass vessel that will not 
corrode. Gradually add this to the flour, stir- 



376 OUR DIGESTION. 

ring constantly, and form it into loaves as 
quickly as possible, and put into a hot oven at 
once. It will need no salt, as the union of the 
acid and soda forms common salt in the dough, 
and, at the same time, gives off carbonic acid 
gas, which distends the doughy mass in every 
direction. 

Brown Bread. 

Take hot water — though not scalding — and 
stir into it corn-meal until it is about half thick 
enough for a good batter ; then cool it with cold 
water, and make a thick batter by adding Gra- 
ham flour; after which give the whole a good 
stirring, and put into pans two or three inches 
deep. It is better to let it stand an hour or 
then put it into a hot oven, and bake steadily 
two hours and a half. Take it out, and cover 
with thick cloths for an hour or two, and it is 
ready for the table. It is also good cold. 
When rightly prepared, it is light enough, 
tender, moist and sweet. 



Every-Day Pudding". 

Stir slowly into fast-boiling water, sprinkled 
from the hand, sufficient Graham flour to make 
a thin pudding. Let it boil five or ten min- 
utes, and it is done. If set away from the fire 



RECEIPTS FOR GOOD FOODS. 377 

a few minutes before taking up, it will cleave 
readily from the kettle, leaving it more easy 
to be washed. Very much depends on the 
manner of making, as from the same materials 
a most delicious dish may be made, or one not 
fit to eat. 

The pudding left from one meal is allowed to 
cool in the table pudding-dish — generally an 
oval dish — and inverted on a platter of same 
form for next meal. Any of this that may be 
left can be dissolved in the water in which the 
next pudding is to be made, and so made over ; 
or a better way is to brown slices of it on a 
griddle. 

Boiled Indian Pudding. 

Four teacups of Indian-meal scalded with a 
quart of boiling water, two teaspoonfuls of salt, 
and two gills of molasses. Tie it in a cloth so 
as to let it swell one-third, and boil three hours. 
Two cups of stewed apples will improve it. 

Indian Hominy or Samp. 

Take the prepared hominy as it is furnished 
in the market, wash and soak it in cold water 
sixteen hours, then boil slowly six hours in a 
double boiler. 

32* 



378 OUR DIGESTION. 

Wheat Hominy. 

Take good cleaned wheat, wash and soak 
twelve hours in cold water, then boil slowly in 
a double boiler six hours. 

Pearl Barley. 

It is a preparation of common barley found 
in the market, and is to be washed and soaked 
over night, and cooked four or six hours in 
water, like hominy. 

Corn-Meal Griddle-Cakes. 

Boil a quart of milk, and scald with it as 
much corn-meal as will make a thick mush. 
(Yellow meal needs more boiling than white.) 
When it is partially cooled, stir in a table- 
spoonful of dry yeast, or half a cap of wet 
yeast, three well-beaten eggs, a teaspoonful of 
salt, and two tablespoonfuls of wheat flour. 
Let it stand three or four hours, and bake on 
a hot soap-stone griddle rubbed with salt. It 
will be necessary to rub the griddle with the 
salted rag between every griddle of cakes, to 
prevent burning. Yellow meal is the best. 

Griddles. 

Plain raised batter, baked on a soap-stone 
griddle, rubbed with salt. 



RECEIPTS FOE GOOD FOODS. 379 

Baked Apple Pudding*. 

Peel and slice about three quarts good cook- 
ing apples, mostly sweet ; mix these with one 
pint Graham flour and one pint corn-meal, one 
teacup of sugar, and water enough to moisten 
the whole. Sprinkle a deep pudding-dish with 
corn-meal and put in the fruit dough, make a 
batter of one teacup each of corn-meal and 
wheat-meal, a tablespoonful of sugar, and water 
or milk, and spread over the top. Bake three 
hours. 

Baked Indian Pudding 1 . 

Put four heaping tablespoonfuls of Indian- 
meal into a pan ; mix with it a teacup of mo- 
lasses and a teaspoonful of salt. Boil three 
pints of milk with orange peel ; pour it scald- 
ing hot upon the meal, stirring rapidly to pre- 
vent lumps ; put it into a pudding-dish ; pour 
over the top a cup of cold milk or cream. 
Bake it five hours in a hot oven. 

Farina Pudding*. 

Take cold boiled farina, one quart, two quarts 
milk, one teacup sugar, and four eggs. Some- 
times raisins are added. Stir well and bake in 
a moderate oven. 



380 OUR DIGESTION. 

Apple Pudding. 

Place in the bottom of a buttered pudding- 
dish a layer of pared apples cut in quarters ; 
pour over these a few spoonfuls of water ; then 
a layer of fine bread-crumbs ; and so alternate 
until the dish is full, finishing with a layer of 
crumbs; moisten the whole with a little water. 
Cover it with a plate and place it in the oven ; 
bake an hour and a half; just before taking 
out, remove the plate, and let the top brown. 
Serve with this sauce : 

Sauce. — One cup of sugar, one tablespoonfiil 
of butter, one tablespoonfiil of molasses, two- 
thirds of a pint of boiling water. Flavor to 
your taste with nutmeg or lemon. 

Rice Pudding. 

One cup of rice, three quarts of milk, one 
teaspoonful of salt, two-thirds of a cup of 
sugar. Bake very slowly. Eat with butter, or 
leave out the sugar and serve with this sauce : 

Sauce. — One egg, one teacup of sugar, 
beaten together twenty minutes, two-thirds of 
a pint of boiling water. Flavor to taste. 

Steanied Pudding. 

One cup oi sour milk sweetened with soda, 
one-half cup o^ thick cream, one-half cup o^ 



RECEIPTS FOR GOOD FOODS. 381 

molasses, one cup of stoned raisins, flour enough 
to make a stiff batter. Boil in a farina kettle 
four hours. Serve with sauce. 



Tea Sauce. 

Beat up six large baked apples, skinned after 
baking, with an egg and a tablespoonful of 
cream ; beat the white of the egg separately, 
and pour it upon the top. 

Cauliflower. 

Wash and cut into large pieces, and boil or 
steam ; when done, put in dishes, and pour over 
it a dressing as for cabbage. 

Parsnips. 

Scrape or pare off the skin, or peel, after 
they are boiled. They will cook tender in half 
an hour. Then set them in the oven for ten 
minutes, and send to the table without season- 
ing. Or, they may be pared and sliced and 
partly boiled in water, which should then be 
poured off and milk substituted, in which they 
should simmer slowly until tender. They are 
not so strong in taste in the autumn as in the 
spring ; hence, although they are generally left 
in the ground through the winter, a part may 



382 OVR DIGESTION. 

be dug in the fall, and packed in the sand in 
the cellar for winter use* They are nice in 
soups, or are good to be eaten cold, or sliced 
and browned on a griddle or in a hot oven. 

Squash. 

Summer squash is by us steamed, mashed and 
served without dressing or seasoning. 

Winter squash should be pared, cleaned 
inside, cut into large pieces and boiled, or 
steamed, which is better. When done, mash 
and season with sugar, and it is ready for the 
table. 

If desired, a little cream may be added to 
either. When steamed, the nicest, dry 
pieces of winter squash may be taken out and 
sent to the table as an excellent substitute for 
sweet potato. 

Baked Squash. 
Take winter squash, cut in halves, partially 
clean them inside, and bake slowly in an oven 
an hour and a half ; then scrape the inner sur- 
face and remove the squash from the rind — 
which has served as a dish in baking — mash, 
and serve for the table. Or, cut the squash 
into several pieces, take off the rind, clean 
inside and bake slowlv. Eat the same as bread 
or baked potatoes. 



RECEIPTS FOB GOOD FOODS. 383 

Green Beans. 
Drop them into boiling water and cook till 
tender, and they are good without any season- 
ing. If any is desired, a little cream and 
sugar are admissible. 

Dried Beans. 
Soak in water over night ; pour off the water, 
and put them in plenty of cold water over the 
fire to scald ; just before boiling, pour off this 
water, and add enough more cold to cover 
about an inch or so ; let these come to boiling, 
and set them back on the stove to cook slowly 
four or five hours. This renders them more 
digestible than the ordinary mode of cooking. 
If baked, they may be boiled one hour and 
baked two or three, in milk and cream and a 
little sugar. 

Green Peas. 
Shell, but do not wash them. Boil in water 
barely sufficient to cook them ; then season 
with cream and sugar, and they are very pal- 
atable without salt. They can be boiled, and 
served with new potatoes as a variety, and will 
be found to make a pleasant dish. 

Asparagus. 
Wash and cut into small pieces ; put into a 
kettle and pour in water sufficient to cover, and 



384 OUR DIGESTION. 

boil it half an hour, adding a little cream be- 
fore taking from the fire, and it is ready to 
serve. This is very nice poured over toasted 
biscuits laid in deep dishes. 



Beets. 

Wash carefully, but do not cut them. In 
summer they will boil in an hour, or less. In 
winter they require two or three hours. When 
done, drop them into cold water, and the skins 
can be readily slipped off by the hand. Cut 
in slices and set upon the table. A very nice 
dish is made by boiling young beets and new 
potatoes, and, after peeling, cut them up in 
small pieces, mix well together in a deep dish, 
and pour over them thin, sweet cream for a 
dressing, or, if cream is not to be had, a thin 
milk gravy will answer. Another way is to 
pare and slice the beets, and boil them in a 
little water, so when they are cooked it will be 
nearly boiled away; then add a thickening of 
flour and milk, and let them simmer ten or 
fifteen minutes. They may also be cooked by 
baking four or five hours in an oven. 



OUE KITCHENS. 385 



OUR KITCHENS. 



In large city houses, the kitchen is now 
placed in the upper story. If in the basement, 
it is difficult to keep, the atmosphere of the 
house sweet. The accumulated odors of years 
render many of our city houses anything but 
" sweet 9 sweet home." 

If for any reason it is impracticable to place 
the kitchen in the garret, the next best thing is 
to ventilate it by a simple arrangement, which 
I will briefly describe. 

Suppose the kitchen to be fifteen feet square. 
The stove or range is at one side. Over the 
stove or range open the ceiling, say three feet 
by five, and extend this up to the next ceiling 
above. It will look, in the room over the 
kitchen, like a simple closet. Let the walls be 
lathed and plastered on both sides. Now run 
your stove-pipe or other flue up through this 
blind closet, and enter the chimney at the very 
top. You will observe that the ceiling over the 
•stove is, say, eighteen feet high instead of eight. 
The heat and all the odors from the cooking 
will ascend quickly into this space. With a 
ventilator opening into the chimney above the 

33 



386 OUR DIGESTION. 

opening for the smoke-pipe, the heat and odors 
will pass off, and you will preserve the atm 
phere of your kitchen as pure as that of your 
parlor. Onions, cabbage and the other strong 
smells disappear in a trice up through the new 
ventilator. 

If in building the house the ceiling of the 
kitchen can be made low, say only six feet 
from the floor, and thereby the ceiling of the 
room over the kitchen be made, say, fourteen 
feet high, then the ventilating shaft over the 
stove will be particularly effective, The residue 
of the ceiling of the kitchen being only six feet 
high, the cool air coming in from the wind 
and doors will pass along under this ceiling and 
keep everything singularly cool and sweet In 
other words, the entire atmosphere of the 
kitchen with its low ceiling will move every 
moment toward the ventilating chamber; and 
thus no odors can possibly come from the stove 
or range out into the kitchen and house. 

This invention is worth thousands of things 
which are patented, and costs almost nothing. 

I need hardly say that the kitchen should be 
light, with hard, smooth, naked floor, one easily 
cleaned, a chest of drawers, a good refrigeral 
abundance of water, which should be kept I 1 
in large quantities, by a pipe in the lire, and a 
marble slab for bread and biscuit. 



ADULTERATIONS OF FOOD. 387 



ADULTERATIONS OP FOOD. 



Most of the articles which appear on our 
tables are more or less adulterated. Most wines 
and liquors are adulterated, while oils, pickles, 
vinegar, preserved fruits and meats, confection- 
ery, sugar, milk, spices, coffee, cocoa, tea, but- 
ter and bread are more or less adulterated. 



Adulterating Substances. 

The articles used in adulterating these foods 
are various sorts of copper and arsenic, various 
compounds of lead and of mercury, Prussian 
blue, chromate of potash, Brunswick green, 
gamboge, indigo, catechu, alum, Venetian red, 
sulphate of soda, yellow ochre; and besides 
these deadly poisons, chalk, plaster of Paris, 
chicory, starch, beans, burned peas, rye, pota- 
toes, lard, water, turmeric, etc., are employed. 

Adulterations of Bread. 

Sprouted or grown wheat makes a common 
flour sold at a low rate, and generally purchased 
by the bakers. Sprouting in the grain changes 



ooz OUR DIGESTION. 

the character of the gluten, bo that it is difficult 
to make with it light and spongy bread; but 
this lost quality can be restored by the use of 
blue vitriol, lime-water or alum. Alum is the 
article usually employed. From e six- 

teen ounces of alum are added to each barrel 
of Hour. 

My friend, Dr. Hoekins, analyzed a 1 
number of specimei bread purchased in 

different parte of the city, and found alum in 
every sample, and the proportion ted 

above, from eight to u ounces <»r* alum to 

a barrel of flour. The white and 1;. edi- 

tion of baker's I is due, gem rally. to alum. 

Such bread is apt to produce heart-burn. 

Is it not -trail-' that the inexperience of the 
average housekeeper can produce a better 
bread, more palatable to everybody, than all 
the experience and skill of the baker? 

The introduction of corn meal, rye Hour and 
potatoes into wheat bread is very common; but 
as neither of them is ] as, we shall ] 

them. 

Alum is Poisonous. 

Dr. Wood, in his work " Therapeutics and 
Pharmacology/ 1 say- of alum. " When -wal- 
lowed in a quantity of a dram or more, it not 
unfrequently causes nausea and vomiting, and 



ADULTERATIONS IN TEA. 389 

sometimes produces griping pains and purg- 



ing." 



Devergie found about six drams of dried 
alum given to a dog to produce death, when 
the oesophagus was tied, so as to prevent vom- 
iting. " When used for a considerable time in 
doses insufficient to nauseate, -alum not unfre- 
quently j)roduces a sense of stricture in the 
epigastrium (pit of the stomach), precordial 
oppression (ojrpression about the heart), and 
other dyspej:>tic feelings, probably by interfer- 
ing with the secretion of the gastric juice, and 
thus impairing digestion." 



Adulterations in Tea. 

Tea is now probably consumed by five hun- 
dred millions, or nearly one-half, of the human 
race. Its active principle, of which it contains 
about two per cent., is theine, and is, so far as 
chemistry has been able to analyze, identical 
with the active principle of coffee, of cocoa and 
of mate, or the Paraguay tea. 

In England, spurious tea is made from the 
leaves of the sole, elder, hawthorn and other 
plants. Besides these, the exhausted leaves 
collected from the hotels and restaurants are 
dried, colored and mixed with genuine teas. 

The Chinese adulterate teas extensively by 

33* 



390 OUR DIGESTION. 

mixing the leaves of other plants, as those of 
the ash, plum, camellia ; secondly, they manu- 
facture a spurious article denominated " lie- 
tea;" and, thirdly, they glaze and paint the 
leaves with various coloring matters. Mr. For- 
tune says, after describing the proa - of man- 
ufacturing tea out of the leaves of other trees : 

"Here, then, were very fair-looking green 
teas made from the leaves of a large tree, 
unlike the tea shrub as could well be; and an 
article as closely resembling Mack tea could 
have been ju>t as easily made out of th 
leaves." 

A superior looking black tea i< frequently 
made by coloring the inferior kinds of tea 
leaves with black lead, or what we should call 
stove-polish. 

There is no such tiling in nature a- 
tea. The whole of this so-called green tea is a 
yellowish green leaf colored with Prussian blue, 
indigo, turmeric and gypsum. 

"Young hyson," says Mr, Davis, "is often 
made up by cutting and sifting, through sieves 
of a certain size, other green tea,-." Mr. Davi< 
says there was, when he was in China, an i\- 
tensive manufactory of green teas from dam- 
aged black leaves, at the village or suburb 
called Honan. His friend, a Hong merchant, 
conducted him to the place where the opera- 



ADULTERATIONS IN TEA. 391 

tions were carried on. He there saw the dam- 
aged black leaves, after being dried, transferred 
to a cast-iron pan and stirred rapidly with the 
hand, a small quantity of turmeric in powder 
haying been previously introduced. This gave 
a yellowish color, and they had still to be made 
green. To this end some lumps of fine blue 
were produced, together with another substance 
in powder, which, from the names given to 
them by the workmen, as well as their appear- 
ance, were recognized at once as Prussian blue 
and gypsum. These were stirred into the tea, 
in the pan over the fire, until it had taken the 
fine bloom color of hyson. To avoid the possi- 
bility of error, Mr. Davis took samples of the 
substances employed. 

Mr, Bruce states that in the " last operation 
of coloring the green teas, a mixture of sul- 
phate of lime and indigo, very finely pulver- 
ized and sifted through fine muslin, in the pro- 
portion of three of the former to one of the 
latter, is added. Into a pan containing seven 
pounds of tea is put about half a teaspoonful 
of this mixture. Indigo gives it the color, and 
sulphate of lime fixes it. Mr. Fortune, during 
each of his journeys, saw the process of color- 
ing teas. He states that, at one of its stages, 
the hands of the workmen are quite blue. 

"I could not help thinking," he remarks, 



392 OUR DIGESTION. 

"if any green-tea drinkers liad been present 
during the operation, their tastes would have 
been corrected and improved." Again, he 
says, " I have stated that the plants grown in 
the district of Che-Kiang produce green te 
but it must not be supposed these are the green 
teas exported to England. The leaf has a 
much more natural color, and has little or none 
of what Ave call the beautiful bloom upon it 
which is so much admired in Europe and 
America. There is no doubt that all th 
blooming green teas, which are manufactured 
at Canton, are dyed with Prussian blue and 
gypsum to suit the taste of the foreign barbar- 
ians/' 

He adds: "In every hundred pounds of 
ored green tea, the consumer actually drii 
more than half a pound of Prussian blue i 
gypsum/' 

The Chinese never drink colored teas them- 
selves, and only color them because they are in 
demand and fetch a higher price. 

Adulterations of Coffee. 

It is rare to purchase ground coffee which is 

pure. It is adulterated with chicory, dande- 
lion root, and very extensively with the ground 
powder of many grains. Jusl now dried carrot 



ADULTERATIONS OF BUTTER. 393 

roots are extensively used. Peas and beans are 
likewise much employed. 

Cocoa and Chocolate. These are so generally 
adulterated that one may go through the shops 
of a town without finding one pure sample. 



Adulterations of Butter. 

The statements of the wise ones about the 
adulterations of butter are almost incredible. 

The quantity of w^ater and salt that butter 
should contain is about two and one-half per 
cent, of salt and ten per cent, of water. As 
much as fourteen per cent, of salt has been 
found, and a much too large percentage of 
w r ater. As high as thirty per cent, of lard is 
frequently added to the cheaper grades of but- 
ter. In rare cases flour has been used. 

The detection of the presence of water in 
butter is easy. Melt it, pour it into a bottle, 
and keep it near the fire for some time, and the 
two substances will separate. The water will 
be seen at the bottom, milky from the presence 
of whey, and the butter at the top. The pro- 
portion of each may be easily estimated. 

Lard of the cheaper qualities is often greatly 
adulterated. Twenty-five and even thirty per 
cent, of water is added, and often salt. The 
presence of water may be detected as in butter. 



394 OUR DIGESTION, 

There is no excuse for the use of salt ; its p] 

ence in the smallest quantity is an adulteration. 
Flour is sometimes added to lard, but as it 
sticks and burns upon a hot vessel it is ea£ 
detected. 



Adulterations of Honey. 

Honey is so commonly adulterated that it is 
difficult to find, even among the 
pure strained honey. The only protection 
against adulterations in this buy it 

in the comb. 

The newspapers contain advertic - of 

recipes for artificial honey. 1 have examined 
a number of these, and find that they are m 
ly made of sugar, water, cream of tartar and 
essence of peppermint. 

Sugar is not often adulterated, though the 
very finely ground sugars sometu ifier in 

this way by the addition of Hour, and a friend 
says, marble dust. 

Pepper, Mustard and Cayenne. 

These are mostly sold in powder, and are 
very rarely pure. The adulterating sube 
consist, in considerable part, of damaged goods 
of the same class, such as have been injured by 



PEPPER, MUSTARD AND CAYENNE. 395 

insects or in clamp places, or such as have suf- 
fered by injury from water. These are ground 
up and are not easy to detect. 

Allspice is frequently adulterated with pre- 
pared flour. 

Cloves are ' often adulterated w r ith various 
kinds of bark ; and often those which appear 
to be genuine are deficient in strength, having 
had a portion of the strength extracted. Dr. 
Hoskins, of this city, says in his work, " What 
We Eat :" "I have purchased several samples 
labelled cinnamon, none of which contained a 
particle of that spice ; they were all the much 
inferior article cassia, in many cases damaged, 
and in all either mixed with corn or rice flour. 
Two samples were colored with ochre, and 
many were almost tasteless." 

Cayenne is adulterated with corn meal and 
salt, and this is so common that it is difficult, 
even if you procure it of a first-class druggist, 
to obtain cayenne pure. 

Mustard is rarely pure. The adulterating 
substances are flour and turmeric. Sometimes 
fifty per cent, is added to the weight in flour, 
and then the turmeric is introduced to restore 
the color. 

Horse-radish is so generally adulterated that, 
instead of a mass of the size of a kernel of 



396 OUR DIGESTION. 

corn starting the tears, one may take a tea- 
spoonful without any disposition to cry. 

Confectionery, Vinegar, Pickles, Preserved 
Fruits, Meats and Fish. 

I find it very hard to write about the adul- 
terations in confectionery in an amiable temper. 
It is abominable — this poisoning children with 
various preparations of lead and other deadly 
poisons. 

The colors are principally red-, bines and 
greens. 

Dr. Hoskins, in the work I quoted, de- 

clares that he lias verified the presence of all 
the following poisons in the coloring matter of 
candies: Chromate of lead, gamboge^ cochin 
Vandyke brown, amber, sienna, Antwerp b 
Prussian blur, Brunswick green, verdigris, < m- 
erald green and false verditer. 

With one exception, these arc all deadly 
poisons, and they are introduced in sufficient 
quantities not only to pr^dnee derangement, 
but in thousands of cases to poison child] 
and, I have no doubt, in a great number of 
cases, actually kill them. 

The subject of deadly poisons in the coloring 
matter of candies has excited very grave inter- 
est among some of the most scientific and phi- 
lanthropic of the men of science. 



CONFECTIONERY, VINEGAR, ETC. 397 

Dr. Hoskins says, in regard to the quantity 
of poisons used in coloring confectionery : 
"They say the quantities of coloring matter 
used are infinitesimal. Perhaps so, but I have 
myself scraped enough Scheele's green from one 
small sugar toy to kill a rabbit in a few min- 
utes." 

The only way to avoid poisoning is to shun 
confectionery in toto, and, although sugar may 
be taken in moderate quantities by children 
without serious injury, no medical man will 
tell you that a child will suffer by avoiding it 
altogether. 

Pickles. That bright green color seen in the 
pickles sold in bottles and otherwise is pro- 
duced, in every case, by some compound of 
copper, a deadly poison. For my part, I never 
touch them. I may add that I have seen 
many persons affected by them. I have never 
seen a case of death produced by these beauti- 
ful, bright green pickles, but I have seen num- 
berless cases in which such poisoning has pro- 
duced a deranged stomach, with thirst. 

Vinegar. Vinegar is so generally adulter- 
ated, that there is no absolute safety except in 
making it in your own house. It may be 
made from cider or sweetened water, by a 
management generally known. 

Pickled Cabbage. One other curious fact in 

34 



398 OUR DIGESTION. 

this matter of adulterations is found in the ar- 
ticle known as pickled red cabbage, which very 
frequently is common cabbage colored with 
some vegetable, dye. 

Wines and Liquors. Wines and liquors are 
adulterated (as the public has long since learn- 
ed) to an enormous extent; but as I feel no 
interest in that, and would, if I could have my 
own way, multiply the adulterations by a hun- 
dred, I will say nothing of them. 

Milk. Milk reflects the condition of the 
animal secreting it. Dr. Van Amnion, phy- 
sician to the King of Saxony, gives an inter- 
esting illustration: "A carpenter quarrelled 
with a soldier billetted in his house, and was 
set upon by the latter with his drawn sword. 
The wife of the carpenter at first trembled 
from fear and terror, and then suddenly threw 
herself furiously between the combatants, wrest- 
ed the sword from the soldier's hand, broke it 
in pieces and threw it away. During the tu- 
mult some of the neighbors came in and sepa- 
rated the men. While in this state of strong 
excitement, the mother took her child from the 
cradle where it lay smiling and in most perfect 
health, never having had a moment's illness 
she gave it the breast, and in so doing sealed 
its late. In a few minutes the infant left off) 
became restless, panted and fell dead upon its 



CONFECTIONERY, VINEGAR, ETC 399 

mother's bosom. The physician who was in- 
stantly called in found the child lying in the 
cradle as if sleeping, and with its features un- 
disturbed ; but all his resources were fruitless ; 
it was irrecoverably gone." 

Cows fed upon distillery slops, and kept in 
close, heated, dark stables, give a milk unfit for 
human food, and especially mischievous to in- 
fants. In the distillery stables of New York 
cows are packed together as closely as they can 
stand, in the midst of indescribable filth, in 
dark, heated, unventilated buildings, and are 
fed upon hot slops from the whisky stills. 
When these dreadful places have been investi- 
gated, the poor creatures have been found in 
every stage of disease and rottenness, and, al- 
though the capital invested in this vile business 
has been able to suborn the testimony of false 
physicians, no thinking man can believe that 
the milk, every drop of which is taken from 
the blood constantly circulating through the 
filthy ulcers and rotten tissues of these tooth- 
less, feverish, half-blind and staggering crea- 
tures, can be sweet and healthful ! Thousands 
of babies in a city like New York fall sacrifices 
to the cupidity of these swill-milk harpies. 

And even when the milk comes from the 
country, and makes its journey in the cars, it 
is then commonly adulterated with water, a lit- 



400 OUR DIGESTION. 

tie salt, and colored with burned sugar. The 
amount of water introduced depends upon the 
cupidity of the milk dealer. The amount of 
water added is, ordinarily, from twelve to fifty 
per cent., or, to use the language of the trade, 
"from 8-1 to splitting it right in two." It 
would be most wise, and would soon correct 
this evil of adulteration with water, if the lit- 
tle instrument known as a lactometer (which 
costs but little) were kept in every house. If 
the instrument be a good one, it is an infallible 
detective. Another good plan is to Bet a little 
of the milk aside, and see, if that " dirty yel- 
low scum," as the city boarding-hou.se keeper 
calls it, will rise to the surface. 



FINAL CHAT WITH THE READER. 401 



FINAL CHAT WITH THE READER. 



Iisr this work I have talked to you about 
health just as I should like to have you talk 
to me about your business. For instance, you 
are an engineer. If you began to reel off your 
technical words, I should say, " Hold on ! tell 
me these things in a simple way, so that I 
can understand : these ports, eccentrics, dia- 
phragms, and so on, I can't manage. If you 
haven't the capacity to talk about these things 
in a way which a plain man can comj>rehend, 
then you should not speak to plain men." So 
when a doctor talks to the people about health, 
if he can't speak in plain language he should 
keep silent. I know very well how easy it is 
to talk in technicalities, how glibly such words 
slip off the tongue. I know that it requires 
an unusual familiarity with the subject to talk 
of health to the people in simple words, but 
unless one can do it, he should keep his mouth 
shut. Sir John Sinclair very happily says : 

"The speculator is always to be suspected 
when, forsaking plain, direct facts, he involves 
his want of meaning and conscious ignorance 
in learned words or metaphor." 

34* 



402 OUE DIGESTION. 

A physician should not gabble about the epi- 
gastrium, solar plexus, and the cerebro-spinal 
axis to the people. It is a habit often indulged 
among doctors. They ought to know better. 
It is as vulgar as the common habit of quoting 
Latin and French; and this, I would add, is 
not only vulgar, but insulting. Whether the 
speaker or writer means it or not, the quota- 
tion may always be rendered thus ■ " / have 
been to college ! How was it with you ? What 
was the standing of your ianiih 

When I was a small chap, my older sister 
used to talk to her young-lady callers in 
Latin — a kind known as bog-Latin, I think. 
For example, if she wished to say to them, 
"Come, let us go out into the garden and leave 
this young scalawag in the house/ 1 she would 
add a peculiar ending to each word, and if I 
remember correctly it was "are?* pronoun 
in two syllables. Then the sentence would 
read : 

" Comeare, letare usare goare ontare intoore 
theare gardenare andare leaveare thisare young- 
are scalawagare inare theare houseare." 

I could run faster than my sister, could mul- 
tiply faster, could beat her at most games, but 
when she retired into the classic shades she 
was too much for me. Oh, how I longed to 
be big enough to study Latin ! How I envied 



FINAL CHAT WITH THE READER. 403 

people who had been to college ! How I won- 
dered that girls could talk Latin ! 

The spirit in which my sister talked her 
gibberish was precisely that in which the ora- 
tor quotes Latin. He does not use a Latin 
sentence because it renders a thought clearer, 
for the orator himself is obliged to translate 
the words into English before he can fully 
comprehend them. And he certainly does not 
introduce Latin to help his hearers, because he 
knows perfectly well that not one in a hundred 
of them will understand a word of it, and that 
he might, for all practical purposes, just as well 
have spoken with his fist in his mouth. 

My are friendare, itare isare aare greatare 
humbugare, andare youare knoware itare asare 
wellare asare Iare doare. 

A priesthood which reads its prayers to the 
million in a dead language, that not one in a 
thousand of them can comprehend, is precisely 
matched by a profession which talks to the 
people of their health in technicalities, and 
writes prescriptions for doses, which they are 
to swallow, in Latin. 

As I wasted several of the best years of my 
life in studying and teaching Latin and Greek, 
I speak with the more warmth on the subject. 

In this work I have talked to you about 
health in a perfectly simple way. .1 have ad- 



404 OUR DIGESTION. 

vocated no "isms" or "hobbies/' but taking 
man just as we find him, with all his passions, 
weaknesses and capacities, I have given you 
the testimony of the experience and wisdom 
of the ages in regard to the habits and prac- 
tices which produce the best health and highest 
vigor. 

It takes a certain quantity of force to dress, 
sit up, eat, digest and talk. Every man must 
have this amount to live. To work, think, 1 
and aspire require a large amount of force. A 
majority of our people, especially women, have 
hardly enough force to live. Dressing, eating, 
digesting and talking are almost too much for 
them. If they attend upon a sick friend, for 
example, they must give up dressing, walk: 
sitting, eating and digesting for a number 
days, in order to catch up. 

Persons in high health have fifty per cent. 
of their vital force to spare for mind and heart. 
Thousands of women, and not a few men, use 
up ninety-nine per cent, of their vital force in 
simply living, including a little poor think] 
and a little weak sentiment, and they are often 
obliged to draw on the constitutional capital 
to achieve this contemptible existence. 

This poverty of health is a very sad form of 
poverty, and yet among many distorted, feeble 
souls, there is a real pride in such physical d< — 



. FINAL CHAT WITH THE READER. 405 

titution. If one lias a weak mind, with little 
power of thought, and is constantly asking silly- 
questions, it is not thought to be particularly 
interesting ; or if one has a weak heart, abound- 
ing in silly sentiment, no one takes pride in it ; 
or if one has a weak conscience, leading to 
theft, lying, and other dishonesty, no one seems 
particularly proud of it; or if one's soul is 
so completely awry that, instead of words of 
gentle reverence, the lips are familiar with 
vulgar oathsjno one is proud of that; there is 
only one kind of weakness and good-for-noth- 
ingness in which people take pride, and that is 
the fundamental one of the body. I say fun- 
damental, because we may as well try to erect 
any other superstructure without a foundation, 
as to develop a noble manhood or womanhood 
upon a weak, faddled, effeminate body. 

We are always complaining that our girls 
are so silly and trifling, that they gabble such 
silly bosh. It is just as natural as that a poor, 
thin soil should produce particularly small po- 
tatoes. When these small-waisted, cold-footed, 
soft-handed, pale-faced young ladies become 
earnest, sensible and strong, then the sand 
knolls will produce something better than white 
beans. 

And finally, addressing a people with weak 
digestion, I believe this work to be the most 



406 OUE DIGESTION. 

important I have ever written. No author can 
be indifferent to the success of his book, and I 
don't pretend that I have ever written anything 
and felt no interest in the opinion of the public. 
But upon the advent of this work I shall watch 
the papers with a yearning anxiety. And this 
would be but little less had some other person 
written it. I could almost wish it had been 
written by another, that I might feel at liberty 
to say what I think of the vital importance of 
its teachings. I should say, among other 
things, that no man can read this work with- 
out acquiring what will remain witli him as a 
sort of conscience to make mere animal indul- 
gences anything but comfortable. 

What is imperatively demanded among us 
is, that our table shall be removed from the 
domain of mere animal gratification into that 
of reason — from the sty into the home of a 
man; that the table shall be no longer an end, 
but a means ; that it shall be made a place 
true refreshment on the high road to a grand 
and noble future! What we want is a Chris- 
tian table, and a public sentiment which shall 
instinctively apply the words Christian and 
unchristian to our food as well as to our 
morals. 

If those who are seeking a higher life have 
doubts upon any of the teachings of this vol- 



FINAL GHAT WITH THE READER. 407 

ume, or if any of its ideas shall suggest inqui- 
ries, the author will hold himself under obli- 
gation to answer, without charge, any question 
which may be addressed to him, with stamp, 
at Boston, Mass. The value of the work may 
turn with many people upon an explanation 
which may be conveyed in a single sentence. 
I shall feel truly remunerated for writing this 
book, not when my publisher's check reaches 
me, but when I hear from its readers that they 
are striving anew to make their bodies fit 
temples for the Holy Spirit. 

The following works by the same author can be supplied on 
application to the publisher of this book : 

"Weak Lungs, and How to Make Them Strong;" "New Gym- 
nastics for Men, Women and Children ;" and " Our Girls." 



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